Though he survived the doomed Antarctic Terra Nova Expedition, George Murray Levick‘s most harrowing tales upon his return related to the horrifying depravity witnessed amongst the local Adelie penguin population. Unfortunately, due to being unfit for polite society, his revelations went around privately among a few experts only to be lost to time. And now that it has been rediscovered we can finally learn the horrid truth in detail.
Levick had been so distraught over his observations that he’d actually recorded them in Greek initially in order to prevent them from being read by the laymen of the time. That’s how far over the edge these Adelie penguins had gone. But what exactly is it that made them so sexually depraved?
According to Levick’s paper — “Sexual Habits of the Adelie Penguin” — he witnessed a variety of homosexual acts, male penguins attempting to mate with dead females, and sexual abuse of chicks. To be entirely fair, the man who found the lost paper, Douglas Russell, notes that they only have a few weeks in October to breed and young adult Adelies have no experience on how to behave.
Perhaps it is past time that we implement a Penguin Protective Services to monitor such flagrant abuses. It seems only right.
(via Phys.Org, image credit via Su Yin Khoo)
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Published: Jun 10, 2012 12:00 pm