The Explosive Physics of Pooping Penguins: They Can Shoot Poo Over Four Feet
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The explosive physics of pooping penguins: they can shoot poo over four feet:
Nature is a brutal place, so during brooding, chinstrap and Adelie penguins are reluctant to leave their eggs unguarded in the nest-even to relieve themselves. But one also does not wish to sully the nest with feces. So instead, a brooding penguin will hunker down, point its rear end away from the nest, lift its tail, and let fly a projectile of poo-thereby ensuring both the safety of the eggs and the cleanliness of the nest.
Back in 2003, two intrepid physicists became fascinated by this behavior and were inspired to calculate the answer to a burning question: just how much pressure can those penguins generate to propel their feces away from the edge of their nests? Answer: about three times more pressure than a human could produce. That paper earned them a 2005 Ig Nobel Prize and lasting glory among those obsessed with pooping penguins. Now, a pair of a Japanese scientists has weighed in on the matter, calculating the projectile trajectory of expelled feces and recalculating the rectal pressure. These scientists reported on their findings in a draft paper they posted to the physics arXiv.
[...] In this latest paper, Hiroyuki Tajima of Kochi University and Fumiya Fujisawa of the Katsurahama Aquarium in Kochi, Japan, note that the original 2003 paper did not take the projectile trajectory of the penguin feces into account. Instead, it focused on a horizontal distance. Tajima and Fujisawa argue that the angle of ejection is not always horizontal, especially if the breeding environment is in a higher location-or if the penguin is standing on a rock while defecating, for instance.
Using Newton's equations, they calculated that the maximum flying distance of penguin poo is 1.34 meters, or 4.39 feet. Tajima and Fujisawa also revisited the question of the rectal pressure required to achieve such a trajectory and found it would be a bit higher than the original estimation. They noted, however, that their simplified equations did not account for the hydrodynamics of feces in the air and in the stomach, "which are left for future work."
Journal Reference:
Victor Benno Meyer-Rochow, Jozsef Gal. Pressures produced when penguins pooh, Polar Biology (DOI: 10.1007/s00300-003-0563-3)
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