The bones of two new penguin species from 50 million years ago have been
discovered by paleontologists.
More than three times the size of the biggest penguins alive today, the
largest penguin known to have ever waddled the Earth weighed in at 340
pounds. A research published on Wednesday in the
Journal of Paleontology
claims that the enormous, flightless seabird lived more than 50 million
years ago in the waters around New Zealand.
On an Unknown Zealand beach, researchers discovered bones from this
enormous penguin, which they called Kumimanu fordycei, as well as those of a
different new species.
According
to co-author
Daniel Field
of the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Cambridge, "Fossils
provide us with evidence of the history of life, and sometimes that evidence
is very startling." "57 million years ago, Kumimanu fordycei would have been
an absolutely astounding sight on the shores of New Zealand."
Between 2016 and 2017,
Alan Tennyson, a paleontologist at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, found
the fossils inside stones that had been torn open by the tide. In addition
to the bones of K. fordycei, he also discovered five specimens of
Petradyptes stonehousei, a fossil of the well-known gigantic penguin
Kumimanu biceae, and two little humeri from a lesser-known species of
penguin.
By employing laser scanners to recreate the bones, Tennyson and his
colleagues were able to match the fossils to those of other flying and
diving bird species. The scientists estimated the weight of the ancient
birds by measuring the measurements of hundreds of current penguin bones and
their flipper size.
The biggest penguin species still living, the emperor penguin, weighs
between
55 and 100 pounds. P. stonehousei, according to researchers, weighed roughly 110 pounds.
According to
Live Science's
Harry Baker, K. fordycei, at nearly 340 pounds, broke the previous record
for the heaviest penguin, which belonged to the 256-pound Palaeeudyptes
klekowskii, which lived in Antarctica some 37 million years ago.
After the dinosaurs were extinct, numerous kinds of enormous penguins lived in Australia and New Zealand,
in sharp contrast to the comparatively tiny penguins of today. According to
the statement, penguins may have been able to travel from New Zealand to
other regions of the world because their increased body size would have
helped save heat in chilly seas.
The size of the penguins would have also served as a deterrent to
predators. According to Jack Tamisiea of the
New York Times, both new species lived in the vicinity of New Zealand at a time when few
larger animals would have bothered them. The asteroid that wiped out the
dinosaurs also wiped out most marine reptiles, and the ancestors of seals
and whales were still living on land.
According to the Times' first author
Daniel Ksepka
of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, "If you're a small one-pound
penguin, a gull can just take your head apart." A 300-pound penguin,
meanwhile, won't be concerned if a sea gull lands nearby since it will just
smash it.
According to Live Science, penguins attained their maximum physical size
fairly early in their evolutionary history compared to certain
mammals—possibly not long after they stopped being able to fly some 60
million years ago. In addition, their early flippers were less like paddles
than those of their contemporary descendants. That makes sense, according to
Julia Clarke,
a paleontologist at the University of Texas at Austin who was not involved
in the study, who told the Times that they likely still possessed some
traits of their flying forebears.
The statement from Field describes "K. fordycei" as "one of the most
interesting fossil birds ever identified" due to "its enormous size and the
fragmentary nature of its fossil remains." Hopefully, further information
about the biology of this magnificent early penguin will be revealed by new
fossil finds.
