Newsletter July 2007

Fossils of two extinct penguin species found in Ica suggest they might have basked in warm climates along the Peruvian coast about 30 million years ago. One of the species, Icadyptes salasi, was a giant penguin and lived about 36 million years ago. It had a 7 inch beak and stood at 5 feet tall, dwarfing the heavyweights of today, Emperor penguins, which stand at only 4.3 feet. The other species, Perudyptes devriesi, is one of the oldest known species of penguin, living about 42 million years ago. It stood at 2.5 to 3.0 feet tall.

These penguins had longer, narrow beaks. Icadyptes’ spear-like beak and very large neck muscles suggest the penguin speared its prey, a fishing technique unknown
in contemporary penguins.

The Icadyptes salasi, however, is not the largest penguin known. Scientists estimate that Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi, or Nordenskjoeld's Giant Penguin, lived up to six million years ago and could have stood at 6’6” and weighed 220 pounds.

At 5 feet tall, the Icadyptes would be taller than actor Danny Devito who is 4’11” tall.

The finding contradicts the established idea that penguins evolved in colder higher latitudes and did not start to move close to the equator until 10 million years ago, long after Earth had cooled down significantly. “We tend to think of penguins as being cold-adapted species,” said Julia Clarke, a paleontologist at North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. “But the new fossils date back to one of the warmest periods in the last 65 million years of Earth’s history. The evidence indicates that penguins reached low-latitude regions more than 30 million years prior to our previous estimates.”

Although these penguins lived in warmer climates, this does not suggest that today’s penguins could adapt to global warming we are experiencing now. “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 comParatyvely 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”.

Source: Yahoo! News, Guardian.co.uk, ScientificAmerican.com

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