Antarctica's king penguins could be driven to extinction by climate change

King penuins' diet of small fish and squid depend on krill, which are sensitive to small rises in sea temperature

David Beaune

an international team of investigators looked at the penguins' main breeding grounds they found that a tiny warming of the Southern Ocean by the El Niño led to a massive fall in the birds' ability to survive.

If predictions by UN scientists of ever-higher temperatures in coming decades prove true, the species faces a major risk of being wiped out

research, which tracked the penguins for more than 8 years, is published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

King penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) are second in size only to the emperor penguin and live on islands on the fringes of Antarctica

The species is unusual in that it takes a whole year for all the birds to complete their breeding cycle

the birds are vulnerable to downturns in seasonal food resources