You’re Gonna Wanna Stay at Least 4.5 Feet Away From a Nesting Penguin

From the News You Can Use Department, we can now relay to you the appropriate social distance from a nesting penguin:

Nature is a brutal place, so during brooding, chinstrap and Adélie 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.

So what’s the range of a loaded penguin?

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.

There. I’m sure I’ve saved at least one person’s shoes. And dignity.

My work is done here.