Yes. During breeding season, males are about 33% larger, as they prepare to hatch the egg without eating for 2 months. That is a difference you as a human can tell.
Penguins on the other hand are evolutionairy incentivised to be able to tell the difference. Just like crows can form social groups while looking the same to humans, so can penguins.
lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
Penguins form life long relationships and don’t even rebound if their partner dies. Pretty sure they can tell genders apart
Tudsamfa@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Contrary to popular belief, Emperor Penguins do not mate for life. They are serially monogamous, only having 1 mate per year, but between years fidelity is at around 15%.
Was looking up something else on Wikipedia and stumbled onto this fact, thought I might as well share it.
lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
So my Spanish teacher was wrong. I hope she didn’t make up the language, too
Zorque@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I dont see how the former links to the latter.
I’d imagine being able to differentiate sex (I doubt they have a concept of gender as we understand it) is an evolutionary necessity, though.
lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 months ago
It’s no definite proof, it is just very unlikely that they can remember their former partner but can’t differentiate between sexes. They look all the same to us but not to them.
Someone else debunked my comment but they still more likely go to their old partner so they seem to remember them