Penguins and the birds and the bees

[John Chardine]

A discovery of notes made by one of the first, if not the first penguin biologist- G. Murray Levick- has surfaced. Apparently he discovered aspects of the sex life of Adélie Penguins that would have been considered taboo back in those Edwardian days during which he made the observations as part of Scott's Antarctic expedition.

This story caught my eye for another reason- I have a first edition of Levick's Antarctic Penguins published in 1914 in which he avoided mentioning some of his more risqué observations.

Here's the Guardian article:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012...cott-antarctic

[Linda Dulak]

Thanks for posting this John. It's always interesting when scientist's beliefs get in the way of accurate descriptions of their observations (or rather publication of their observations). I can think of several instances where findings would go against popular belief and thus were questioned by the scientist and their reviewers alike. It is interesting that his article in which he included these observations was edited to remove these risque observations before publication.

Linda