August 1, 2024 Evrim Yazgin

I love penguins!

New analysis of New Zealand fossils first uncovered in 1987 shows how penguin wings evolved.

The wing fragments were found near the town of Duntroon on New Zealand’s South Island, nearly 1,000km southwest of the Auckland.

The fossils come from a species called Pakudyptes hakataramea. It lived during the late Oligocene (34–23 million years ago). P. hakataramea is described for the first time in a study published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand today.

Worldwide, the latter part of the Oligocene was characterised by a drying of the climate. Forests which dominated the continents, including Australia, were beginning to recede. Grasslands and prairies expanded, seeing the evolution of grazing animals.

New Zealand today is believed to be the lost, ancient continent of Zealandia breaking through to the surface. Tens of millions of years ago, Zealandia’s rocky shores and surrounding waters were a hotbed of evolutionary development.

Among the ancient marine and coastal life found in New Zealand are dolphins, seals, crabs and ancestors of tropicbirds.

New Zealand has also thrown up ancient penguin fossils. This includes the largest ever penguin which lived 55 million years ago, stood as tall as a person and weighed a whopping 150kg.

In fact, New Zealand seems to have been teeming with giant penguins. (snip-More)

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/palaeontology/penguin-wing-fossils-zealandia/