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Thursday, October 28, 2010

Photo: Adelie Penguins Extinct in a Decade in Some Areas?


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Adélie penguins walk across the ice in January 2004, summer in Antarctica.

The icy continent is warming faster than anywhere else on the planet, causing many populations of Adélies—which rely on the ebb and flow of sea ice—to decline dramatically.

If the trend continues, an expert says, the birds will be locally extinct within the next five to ten years.

Photograph by Frans Lemmens/Getty Images