Fossil bones from two newly-described penguin species, one of them thought to be the largest penguin to ever live – weighing more than 340 pounds, more than three times the size of the largest living penguins – have been unearthed in New Zealand. An international team, including researchers from
, discovered the fossils in 57 million-year-old beach boulders in North Otago, on New Zealand’s South Island, between 2016 and 2017.
They concluded that the largest flipper bones belong to a penguin that tipped the scales at an astounding 340 pounds . In comparison, emperor penguins, the tallest and heaviest of all living penguins, typically weigh between 50 and 100 pounds . Multiple specimens of a second penguin species were also found, providing a detailed view of the skeleton. Dubbedbut still well above the weight of an emperor penguin. The name combines the Greek ‘petra’ for rock and ‘dyptes’ for diver, a play on the diving bird being preserved in a boulder. ‘Stonehousei’ honours the late Dr. Bernard Stonehouse , the first person to observe the full breeding cycle of the emperor penguin, a major milestone in penguin biology.
When asked why early penguins grew to titanic proportions, Ksepka speculated it made them more efficient in the water. “Size conveys many advantages,” he said. “A bigger penguin could capture larger prey, and more importantly it would have been better at conserving body temperature in cold waters. It is possible breaking the 100lb size barrier allowed the earliest penguins to spread from New Zealand to other parts of the world.
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