Oversized penguin fossils found in New Zealand

9 Feb. () –

Fossil bones excavated in New Zealand correspond to the largest penguin species that has ever existed: it weighed more than 150 kilograms, more than triple that of the largest living penguins.

Fossils were discovered in 57-million-year-old beach rocks in North Otago, on the South Island of New Zealand, between 2016 and 2017.

An international team, including researchers from the University of Cambridge, has reported new discoveries in the journal Journal of Paleontology.

They have been determined to be between 59.5 and 55.5 million years old, which places their existence between five and ten million years after the Cretaceous extinction, which caused the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs.

The team used laser scanners to create digital models of the bones. and compare them with those of other fossil species, diving flying birds such as razorbills, and modern penguins. To estimate the size of the new species, the team measured hundreds of modern penguin bones and calculated a regression using flipper bone dimensions to predict weight.

They concluded that the largest flipper bones belonged to a penguin weighing a staggering 154 kg. By comparison, Emperor penguins, the tallest and heaviest of all living penguins, typically weigh between 22 and 45 kg.

“Fossils provide us with evidence for the history of life, and sometimes that evidence is really amazing,” he said. it’s a statement co-author Dr Daniel Field of Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences. “Many of the earliest fossil penguins reached enormous sizes, easily surpassing the largest extant penguins. Our new species, Kumimanu fordycei, is the largest fossil penguin ever discovered: at approximately 350 pounds, (158 kilos) would have weighed more than [el jugador de baloncesto] Shaquille O’Neal at the peak of his career”.

The team named the new species Kumimanu fordycei after Dr. R. Ewan Fordyce, Professor Emeritus at the University of Otago. “Ewan Fordyce is a legend in our field, but also one of the most generous mentors I have ever known,” said first author Daniel Ksepka, MD, of the Bruce Museum, Greenwich, Connecticut.

Multiple specimens of a second species of penguin, providing a detailed view of the skeleton. Called Petradyptes stonehousei, it weighed 50 kg, less than the Kumimanu fordycei but well above the weight of an emperor penguin. The name combines the Greek words “petra” (rock) and “dyptes” (diver), alluding to the diving bird preserved in a rock. Stonehousei pays tribute to the late Dr. Bernard Stonehouse (1926-2014), the first person to observe the complete reproductive cycle of the emperor penguin, an important milestone in penguin biology.

These two newly described species demonstrate that penguins became very large early in their evolutionary history, millions of years before they fine-tuned their fin apparatus. The team found that the two species retained primitive traits, such as thinner fin bones and muscular attachment points resembling those of flying birds.