Ursula

Improbable as it would have seemed to almost all biologists and animal behaviourists, a young king penguin named Ursula ventured into the open Atlantic Ocean in 2007 and launched a three-month journey toward an area off Antarctica. Statistically, one out of three would have died in the predator-dense danger zone where Ursula took the leap. 

I heard the story of Ursula on the first page of the book Wildhood co-authored by an evolutionary biologist and a science journalist. 

Ursula's story is legendary. Picture those massive jaws of leopard seals lurking offshore: they are lined with teeth like a tiger's. Visualise the hydrodynamic half-ton of explosive muscle, with action and precision like a missile's. You won't believe Ursula made the leap and swam ten kilometres a day – alive. 

Ursula wasn't the first penguin to jump or dive into the icy water. Many others wait at the water's edge, watching and learning from more experienced peers. They learn a great deal from what we call social learning. We all do. We can learn a lot from what our peers do right, and even from what they mess up. Watching bad things happen to one's cohorts provides a fish, bird, or mammal with lessons one can't get anywhere else. 

To the list of fish, bird, or mammal, I would add the rank of doctors. We doctors don't call that social learning; we call it shadowing, or assistant internship if you like. This happens every July.