Penguins have their first egg near Vernadsky station: photo

Penguins laid an egg for Ukrainian polar explorers. It appeared right on the porch of the main building of the Vernadsky Antarctic Station.

The National Antarctic Research Center reported this.

"We only recently wrote about the start of the breeding season for subantarctic penguins near Vernadsky, and yesterday, they had their first egg! More precisely, 4 eggs in different parts of the island, but the first one was found by polar explorers in the nest right at the entrance to the main station building, near the weather station," polar explorers write.

The mating season and the birth of cubs of sub-Antarctic penguins occur once a year, from mid-Antarctic spring to mid-summer. It is noteworthy that this year the nesting started quite early: earlier in the station's area, the first eggs appeared closer to mid-November.

The eggs of these 🐧 are white with a gray or greenish tinge, and in shape and size resemble goose ones. One pair's laying usually consists of 2 eggs, rarely 3, but the third baby usually has very little chance of survival.

Penguins have a partnership attitude to hatching eggs and then feeding the young: they do it in turn. While one parent stays in the nest, the other goes to feed in the ocean. Then they change each other.

"The chicks hatch from eggs a little more than a month later. So we can expect the penguins near the station to replenish in early December, and by the new year, obviously, our entire island will be filled with kids," say the scientists.

Photo: Oksana Savenko