A specimen of almost 160 kilos and a height greater than that of the emperor penguin would have been discovered by paleontologists from the University of Cambridge, thus confirming the existence of one of the largest specimens in history.
A group of paleontologists would have discovered the largest penguin in history, according to their finding the animal would exceed the emperor penguin in height and weight, the largest type known so far.
A team of researchers has described new species of giant penguins that lived on the coasts of New Zealand some 60 million years ago, and they have verified that they are the largest specimens that have ever existed.
The results of the research, which has been carried out and published by an international team of scientists from the fossil remains found, have revealed the existence of a very diverse group of penguins belonging to a main group of the Paleocene.
new giant species
In the team, which has published its results in Journal of Paleontologyresearchers from the University of Cambridge and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa have participated, who discovered the fossil remains in rocks of a 57-million-year-old beach in North Otago, on the South Island of New Zealand, between the years 2016 and 2017.
The investigations that have been completed now add to those that were already published in 2017, when scientists they had already verified that giant penguins lived on the coasts of New Zealand, the size of an adult manbetween 55 and 65 million years ago.
Those fossils were found in 2004 on Hampden beach, in the Otago region, on the South Island of New Zealand, and scientists verified that they would be the largest in history, with a size much larger than that of the “emperor penguin”. the largest living today, with a size of just 1.22 meters and 23 kilograms.
The biggest penguin in history
New research has now revealed new, even larger species that lived in the same area during the late Paleocene, between 55.5 and 59.5 million years ago, according to the Cambridge University publication.
The largest specimen has been assigned to a new species (Kumimanu fordycei), which scientists say may be the largest ever to exist, as it measurements of the length and width of the humerus of the fossils found yield an estimate of a body mass of up to 159 kilograms.
The researchers have also found a second new species (Petradyptes stonehousei), represented in five specimens, much smaller than those previously described, but with a size much larger than the “emperor” living today.
The University of Cambridge has specified in a press release that these two newly described species show that penguins became very large at the beginning of their evolutionary history, millions of years before they fine-tuned their fin apparatus.
The team found that the two species retained primitive features, such as thinner fin bones and muscle attachment points that resemble those of flying birds.
The researchers have pointed out, to justify the gigantic proportions of those penguins, the possibility that this size made them much more efficient in the water.