Pachydyptes ponderosus

Pachydyptes ponderosus
	Drawing reconstruction based on the model of the recent king penguin .
Temporal occurrence
	Oligocene to Miocene
	36 to 21.7 million years
Locations
	New Zealand;
Systematics
Class :	Birds (aves)
Order :	Penguins (Sphenisciformes)
Family :	Penguins (Spheniscidae)
Genre :	Pachydyptes
Type :	Pachydyptes ponderosus
Scientific name of the genus
	Pachydyptes
	Oliver , 1930
Scientific name of the species
	Pachydyptes ponderosus
	Oliver , 1930

Pachydyptes ponderosus (also called New Zealand giant penguin ) is a fossil representative of the penguins (Sphenisciformes), which lived in the time of the Oligocene and Miocene . It is the only known representative of its genus and, after Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi, is the second largest penguin species that has ever lived. The largest specimen found was probably 50%taller thanthe largest recent penguins. It was first described by the New Zealand ornithologist and curator Walter Reginald Brook Oliver in his book New Zealand birds ,published in 1930, which alsodescribed the snare island penguin (1953), among other things.

description

Pachydyptes ponderosus was likely up to six feet tall and weighed up to 100 pounds. The largest penguin living today, the emperor penguin ( Aptenodytes forsteri ), can grow up to 1.30 meters tall and weigh up to 50 kilograms.

Pachydyptes ponderosus lived in New Zealand . Like all penguins, it lived on beaches where it hunted large fish in the nearby sea.

evolution

It is unlikely that Pachydyptes was an ancestor of a recent penguin.

Web links

Wikinews: Students find a fossilized giant penguin - Message

Individual evidence

^ Percy R. Lowe: Some additional notes on Miocene penguins in relation to their origin and systematics. In: Ibis , Vol. 81, No. 2, 1939, pp. 281-294.
^ ^A ^b ^c ^d George Gaylord Simpson: A review of the pre-Pliocene penguins of New Zealand. In: Bulletin of the AMNH , Volume 144, Article 5, 1971.

[1] Percy R. Lowe: Some additional notes on Miocene penguins in relation to their origin and systematics. In: Ibis , Vol. 81, No. 2, 1939, pp. 281-294.

[Simpson-2] A ^b ^c ^d George Gaylord Simpson: A review of the pre-Pliocene penguins of New Zealand. In: Bulletin of the AMNH , Volume 144, Article 5, 1971.