Lloyd Spencer Davis: The Plight of the Penguin

By PHILIP ENGLISH

Penguins may look like cute clones dressed in tuxedos with lifestyles fitting a fairytale image.

But a new book by Dunedin writer and penguin authority Lloyd Spencer Davis cuts through such preconceptions as he tells the true story of the birds - survival Machines that have evolved over 50 million years living in some of Earth's most inhospitable climates, from Antarctica to cactus-covered deserts in Peru and Chile.

They are, as Davis says, "100 per cent birds disguised somewhat as fish."

The Plight of the Penguin puts science first but expresses the natural history of penguins with wit and eccentric observations that could only come from someone who has studied the birds for more than 20 years and who has led at least eight penguin research expeditions to Antarctica.

The fact that cartoonists love penguins is not lost.

The book uses cartoons to illustrate some of the behaviour of the birds - from a cartoonist's viewpoint. It also features 70 outstanding colour photographs.

Davis, a senior zoology lecturer at the University of Otago and the director of a new course in natural history film-making in conjunction with the Dunedin Natural History Unit, says of the book's approach: "I've always been fairly committed to trying to make science digestible.

"Scientific methodology is fantastic - it's probably the best way of being sure you are getting closer and closer to the truth.

"But scientific means of communication, as we do in scientific papers and so forth, is absolutely abysmal.

"I think it is really important that we try to make science more attractive and more digestible and more approachable, and really that was the aim of the book."

He says penguins are under threat from oil spills, habitat destruction and global warming.

Davis also studies other animals.

"If we continue with this sort of approach the next [book] will probably be on seals ... and then maybe monkeys."

* The Plight of the Penguin, at $39.95, is published by Longacre Press.