The little tuxedo-wearing penguins of today were once huge. Don’t believe us? Well, a new study has revealed this amazing bit of information. The flightless bird that today, on average, weighs 22 to 45 kilogrammes, was once a whopping 154 to 159 kg; this makes it thrice the weight of the Emperor Penguin, the largest member of the species today. The now-extinct penguin species, called Kumimanu fordycei or K fordycei, inhabited New Zealand about 57 million years ago, which means they existed a few years after dinosaurs were wiped off the face of this planet. The findings by the international team of researchers have been published in the Journal of Paleontology.
The fossil of this penguin and another species were discovered a few years back, between 2016 and 2017. They were among the 57 million-year-old beach boulders in North Otago, on New Zealand’s South Island.
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Based on fossils discovered in New Zealand, researchers also reported one more species of Penguins. This one is called Petradyptes stonehousei and as per estimates would’ve weighed around 50 kilogrammes.
Dr Daniel Field at Cambridge’s Department of Earth Sciences, who co-authored the paper, while talking about the discovery, said, “many early fossil penguins attained enormous sizes, easily dwarfing the largest penguins alive today.”
The Kumimanu fordycei fossil that researchers have discovered is incomplete and as per Field, this and its sheer size, “makes it one of the most intriguing fossil birds ever found.”
Researchers are yet to discover the bones of the bird’s legs, but they estimate that it would’ve been roughly around five feet and four inches (5’4″).
He said that the penguin “at approximately 350 pounds, it would have weighed more than Shaquille O’Neal at the peak of his dominance,” would have been an “utterly astonishing sight on the beaches of New Zealand 57 million years ago”.
Both the penguins reportedly lived around the same time and had primitive features such as slender flipper bones and muscle attachment points that apparently resemble those of flying birds.
(With inputs from agencies)
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