A penguin can't change its spots

It's official - the African penguin can't change its spots. In fact, they are as permanent and distinctive as fingerprints.

The colony on Robben Island in Cape Town may find themselves on Reality TV as scientists set up a video system that will enable them to distinguish between the creatures.

Scientists working on the Earthwatch Institute research project, called South African Penguins, were to set up a camera on Robben Island on Monday.

It is to be controlled via radio link to a laptop 400m from the observation site, the online magazine Science In Africa reported.

Researchers will now be able to differentiate between the penguins after recent developments in pattern recognition software.

This will enable them to monitor the behaviour and migratory patterns of the birds.

Professor Les Underhill, director of the Avian Demography Unit at the University of Cape Town and a professor in the department of statistical sciences, who is in charge of the research project, explained how scientists are able to identify the African penguin, also known as Spheniscus demersus.

"One usually thinks of the penguin as having a white front, but it doesn't. Spheniscus has a scattering of black feathers on its front. When it moults - which they do annually - the feathers grow in exactly the same places as before," he said.

Underhill said that although scientists had been aware that penguins had different markings, they had been unable to prove there were distinctions between the thousands on Robben Island - until now.

"It's only recently that computers have become powerful enough and we have developed software that can do the comparisons. It's a very exciting development," Underhill said.

Dr Peter Barham, a polymer physicist from the University of Bristol, said he and others would spend the next few days completing the set-up of the field system.

Underhill said pattern recognition might soon enable scientists to phase out using steel bands on penguins for identification.