6 of 8

Write now Article Tools

A new paper published in 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' in late June, 2007 turned the penguin world upside down suggesting that penguins like it hot.

Julia Clarke, a professor from North Carolina State University from the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences led a paper introducing Perudyctes and Icadyptes; two incredibly large and largely incredible Peruvian penguin discoveries. While not as tall at the tallest (6 feet) or as heavy as the heaviest (180 pounds!) these new penguin tell a new story that no one had seen coming. While penguins have been found in the southern Antarctic regions as well as near the equator, it was believed that they originated in the south. However, some of the oldest penguin fossils ever found indicate that penguins in fact lived near the tropical equator before they made the cold waddle to the south.

While we imagine cute, black and white waddling flightless birds sliding over the icy glacial planes, we are getting a new image of giant and ancient penguins living at the equator during the warmest period of the Cenozoic era. Icadyptes stood over five feet tall, and had a sharp, heron-like, seven-inch beak. Perudyptes, on the other hand, still had feathers, although the musculature around the bones suggested that it was flightless qualities which indicate that this penguin demonstrates an evolutionary link between a wing and a paddle.

The fossils were dug out of 30 million year old Eocene rock on the coast of Peru quashing original theories that penguins originated in the Antarctic regions of the southern hemisphere. It's clear that the first penguins preferred greenery to glaciers. The age of the fossils show that penguins were living near the equator earlier than anyone had previously suggested. Strengthening the argument beyond the two behemoth birds were three other previously undescribed species of penguins from the same rock formation. Today, only two of 17 described species of penguin live in tropical waters.

While it was originally believed that penguins evolved during the emerging ice age of the Cenozoic, it is now evident that they were alive and flourishing much earlier than that, in fact during one of the warmest periods of that era. In this case, it appears that the cooling conditions had a much greater impact on the evolution of the species than previously believed. While researcher Clarke said "We tend to think of penguins as being cold-adapted species the new fossils date back to one of the warmest periods in the last 65 million years of the Earth's history. The evidence indicates that penguins reached low-altitude regions more than 30 million years prior to our previous estimates."

It is not believed, however, than extant penguins would survive should global conditions drastically warm up in this modern day and age. While the early cousins were quite comfortable in the tropics, tens of millions of years separate their coping abilities from today's chilly cousins.

"We are not by these findings implying that extant penguins will not be affected by current global warming. These Peruvian species are early branches off the penguin family tree, that are comparatively distant cousins of living penguins," Clarke said. "In addition, current global warming is occurring on a significantly shorter timescale. The data from these new fossil species cannot be used to argue that warming wouldn't negatively impact living penguins."

The research for this paper was funded by the National Science Foundation Office of International Science and Engineering and the National Geographic Society.

Learn more about this author, Ryan Rogers.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Bird facts: Penguins?
We want to hear your view. Write now!