Giant penguins 'once lived in Peru'
Monday, 25 Jun 2007 18:00
Artist's impression of the giant Peruvian penguins
Giant penguins used to thrive in warm regions including Peru, scientists claim.
Rather than the image of penguins only living in the icy plains of Antarctica, new research shows that two previously undiscovered penguin species reached equatorial regions tens of millions of years earlier than expected.
Peruvian researchers found the new extinct penguins' sites in 2005 in the country's south coast regions. Scientists claim the new species are the first fossils to indicate a significant and diverse presence of penguins in areas around the world's equator.
The first, Icadyptes salasi, was five feet tall and lived about 36 million years ago, while the second, Perudyptes devriesi, lived about 42 million years ago and was about the same size as a living King Penguin – about three feet tall.
Both species had long, narrow, pointed beaks and robustly-built necks.
Writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), scientists argue that the new penguin fossils call into question theories about the timing and pattern of penguin evolution and expansion.
Previous hypotheses claimed that penguins probably evolved in high latitudes of Antarctica and New Zealand and then moved into lower latitudes that are closer to the equator about ten million years ago.
Challenging this, palaeontologist Dr Julia Clarke said: "We tend to think of penguins as being cold-adapted species, even the small penguins in equatorial regions today.
"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."
She added that the new findings should not encourage people to think that because prehistoric penguins may not have been cold-adapted, living penguins will not be negatively affected by climate change.
"These Peruvian species are early branches off the penguin family tree, that are comparatively distant cousins of living penguins," said Dr Clarke.
"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."