Research Project
Aging in King Penguins
What happens when a penguin lives like a typical Westerner—that is, without the long periods of fasting that are natural to its habitat and with less physical activity? This research project is seeking answers to that question.
Rate of aging, immunosenescence, and genomic instability: What can we learn from king penguins? A research project conducted as part of a collaboration between the University of Helsinki, the Zurich Zoo, and the French Polar Institute is exploring this question. Simply put, researchers are investigating what happens when a king penguin lives like a typical Westerner.
Lifestyle Changes
Prehistoric humans often struggled with food shortages. The emergence of agriculture and the development of medicine brought food security and longer lifespans.
The same is true for animals in zoos: They lead protected, low-risk lives and are well-fed and receive medical care. As a result, they often live longer. However, for animals as well as humans, this longer life also has its downsides, ranging from reduced fertility to cancer.
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With your donation, you support scientific research here at the zoo. Your donation goes entirely toward our projects, and you can claim it as a tax deduction.
Health in Later Life
Researchers from the University of Helsinki, the Zurich Zoo, and the French Polar Institute are investigating how food security and—in the case of humans—a sedentary lifestyle affect health in old age. The focus is on the king penguin: a long-lived bird that is naturally adapted to fasting for weeks at a time in the wild. In captivity, it can live well past 30 years.
The goal of this research is to understand what happens when this active swimmer and regular fasters begins to live like a typical Westerner: with fresh fish within reach and access to medical care whenever he needs it. We hope that this will, on the one hand, help us understand what happened during the early stages of humans’ transition to a sedentary lifestyle. And on the other hand, that it will help us provide the king penguins at the zoo with an even better life.
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