Post by auntym on Aug 4, 2014 13:02:46 GMT -6
www.newscientist.com/article/dn25990-extinct-mega-penguin-was-tallest-and-heaviest-ever.html
www.grahamhancock.com/news/index.php?node=43154
Extinct mega penguin was tallest and heaviest ever
01 August 2014
by Jeff Hecht
For similar stories, visit the Evolution Topic Guide: www.newscientist.com/topic/evolution
Forget emperor penguins, say hello to the colossus penguin. Newly unearthed fossils have revealed that Antarctica was once home to the biggest species of penguin ever discovered. It was 2 metres long and weighed a hefty 115 kilograms.
Palaeeudyptes klekowskii lived 37 to 40 million years ago. This was "a wonderful time for penguins, when 10 to 14 species lived together along the Antarctic coast", says Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche of the La Plata Museum in Argentina.
She has been excavating fossil deposits on Seymour Island, off the Antarctic peninsula. This was a warmer region 40 million years ago, with a climate like that of present-day Tierra del Fuego, the islands at the southern tip of South America.
The site has yielded thousands of penguin bones. Earlier this year, Acosta Hospitaleche reported the most complete P. klekowskii skeleton yet, although it contained only about a dozen bones, mostly from the wings and feet (Geobios, DOI: 10.1016/j.geobios.2014.03.003).
Now she has uncovered two bigger bones. One is part of a wing, and the other is a tarsometatarsus, formed by the fusion of ankle and foot bones. The tarsometatarsus measures a record 9.1 centimetres. Based on the relative sizes of bones in penguin skeletons, Acosta Hospitaleche estimates P. klekowskii was 2.01 meters long from beak tip to toes.
CONTINUE READING: www.newscientist.com/article/dn25990-extinct-mega-penguin-was-tallest-and-heaviest-ever.html
www.grahamhancock.com/news/index.php?node=43154
Extinct mega penguin was tallest and heaviest ever
01 August 2014
by Jeff Hecht
For similar stories, visit the Evolution Topic Guide: www.newscientist.com/topic/evolution
Forget emperor penguins, say hello to the colossus penguin. Newly unearthed fossils have revealed that Antarctica was once home to the biggest species of penguin ever discovered. It was 2 metres long and weighed a hefty 115 kilograms.
Palaeeudyptes klekowskii lived 37 to 40 million years ago. This was "a wonderful time for penguins, when 10 to 14 species lived together along the Antarctic coast", says Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche of the La Plata Museum in Argentina.
She has been excavating fossil deposits on Seymour Island, off the Antarctic peninsula. This was a warmer region 40 million years ago, with a climate like that of present-day Tierra del Fuego, the islands at the southern tip of South America.
The site has yielded thousands of penguin bones. Earlier this year, Acosta Hospitaleche reported the most complete P. klekowskii skeleton yet, although it contained only about a dozen bones, mostly from the wings and feet (Geobios, DOI: 10.1016/j.geobios.2014.03.003).
Now she has uncovered two bigger bones. One is part of a wing, and the other is a tarsometatarsus, formed by the fusion of ankle and foot bones. The tarsometatarsus measures a record 9.1 centimetres. Based on the relative sizes of bones in penguin skeletons, Acosta Hospitaleche estimates P. klekowskii was 2.01 meters long from beak tip to toes.
CONTINUE READING: www.newscientist.com/article/dn25990-extinct-mega-penguin-was-tallest-and-heaviest-ever.html