A remarkable new penguin 'supercolony' of over 1.5 million birds has been discovered off the coast of Antarctica - take a look

Adélie Penguins feed on krill, fish, and squid, diving as deep as 575 feet into Antarctic waters.

As far as biologists have been able to tell, the total number of Adélie Penguins, which are some of the most common penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula, have been on the decline.

But satellite images revealed that penguins seemed likely to be on the Danger Islands, which are extremely remote and surrounded by sea ice, even in summer.

The researchers spotted hundreds of thousands of the birds upon arriving at the islands.

They used a quadcopter drone to survey the island from above, taking photos they could stitch together to better measure the population using neural network software to count the animals.

"Not only do the Danger Islands hold the largest population of Adélie penguins on the Antarctic Peninsula, they also appear to have not suffered the population declines found along the western side of Antarctic Peninsula that are associated with recent climate change," said Michael Polito, a guest researcher at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute from Louisiana State University and one of the study authors, in a news release.

Source: Stony Brook University

The discovery will provide evidence for proposed Marine Protected Areas and help researchers better manage the Antarctic krill fishery.