SELFISH PENGUINS HUDDLE FAIRLY
New study has shown that penguin’s selfish ways when it comes to huddling actually seem to help everyone. In the cold and harsh environment that Antarctica bears, penguins regularly pack together in very tight huddles to maintain body heat. It has always seemed that penguins slowly push their way to the middle of the huddle self-centeredly to minimize their own heat loss. However when this was demonstrated in a model made by mathematicians in California- it was shown that this selfish behaviour actually allows the heat to be shared equally among the group.
The packs are so tight that only the outside penguins can move and understandably due to the number of penguins and force of wind- it is the outside penguins that are the coldest. Yet over time the outside penguins force their way into the pack and this continues as the group changes shape, gradually elongating and creeping downwind.
Even if penguins aren’t thinking of their community but only themselves, they will still find themselves displaying equality in the amount of time spent on the outside of the group and amount of heat lost.
"When a cold penguin relocates usually from a windward position to a leeward position, the heat distribution recalculates."
19