Have you ever opened your phone to find it set to the front camera while you wanted to do something completely different?
If the answer is yes you might be able to relate to these Emperor penguins, who mistakenly took a selfie while sniffing around the equipment of an explorer in Antarctica.
Auster Rookery, the location where the selfie was taken, is a colony of breeding penguins that is situated on sea ice surrounded by icebergs.
There are a number of such penguin colonies in Antarctica, some of which are home to as many as 20,000.
All in all, there were around 238,000 breeding couples of Emperor penguins on the continent in 2012, according to PEW.
Australian explorer Eddie Gault visited the place, in hopes of getting some good pictures of the penguins before dusk. While he was in the middle of setting up his filming gear and had his back turned to the camera when the two curious penguins made their way towards him. They then knocked over the camera but it landed lens up and kept on filming, as per NPR.
In the video that came out of this, one penguin’s body enters into the shot first, followed by the second one.
Both of them look right into the lens, probably wondering what they have just stumbled upon. And before he knew it, Eddie had a better photo than he could have hoped for, except he couldn’t take credit for it.
The fortunate explorer later said penguins are “naturally curious” and that that they “seize[d] the opportunity for a selfie.”
The video has since received thousands of likes and shares on social media, and people are just loving it.
The penguins that were the stars in this hilarious incident are part of a species The International Union for Conservation of Nature has marked as “Near Threatened.”
And while this means that their numbers are mostly stable and they are not in danger of extinction unlike other penguin species, they are still under serious threat due to the warming of the continent.
See the adorable video by clicking below.
What are your thoughts on these naughty penguins? Let us know by joining the conversation in the comments and please share this article to spread the joy.
