Penguins Announce Standing Rota

A colony of emperor penguins has formally announced what it describes as a standing rota, under which every bird takes a turn on the windy outer edge of the huddle and every bird is, sooner or later, returned to the warm middle. The announcement was made on Tuesday by a senior penguin standing on a wooden crate, addressing a large and extremely attentive crowd, most of whom were facing slightly the wrong way and all of whom were pressed very closely together.

The system works without a list. Birds on the outside shuffle a few centimetres at a time along the edge of the group and are gradually folded inwards by the general drift, so that the whole huddle slowly turns through itself like dough being kneaded. The colony stresses that nobody organises this, that nobody has ever organised it, and that it has been working perfectly well without an announcement for a very long time. The crate, it concedes, is new.

A proposal to formally thank the birds who had spent longest on the outside was rejected after a short discussion. Under the terms announced, no bird is to mention how long any other bird has been in the middle, and any attempt to keep count is to be treated as a kind of weather: noticed, endured and not taken personally. A motion to introduce a snack rota was referred to a later meeting, on the grounds that there are no snacks.

The rota takes effect immediately and expires in the spring. Asked what happens to a bird that refuses to move, the senior penguin indicated that the question does not really arise, since the huddle moves whether or not any individual has agreed to it, and the only alternative is standing alone in the wind being right. The crowd shuffled forward a few centimetres in apparent agreement, and the speaker, now on the outer edge, stepped down from the crate.

The joke is built on one of the most remarkable sights in the Antarctic winter. Emperor penguins really do huddle together in enormous groups to survive the cold, and researchers who filmed huddles found that the birds move in small, coordinated steps that travel through the whole group like a wave. Over time, those tiny shuffles slowly reorganise the huddle, which helps birds take turns between the exposed edge and the sheltered centre, without any single penguin being in charge.

It is a lovely thing to think about on a cold, crowded morning. The warmth in the middle only exists because everyone keeps shuffling, and everyone who is warm now was on the outside a little while ago. No speeches are needed, and no one has to keep score. So the next time you are waiting in a chilly queue or squeezing onto a busy bus, you might borrow the penguins’ rule: take your turn on the edge, move along when it is time, and do not mention how long anyone else has been in the middle.