Pachydyptes ponderosus
Pachydyptes ponderosus | ||||||||||
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![]() Drawing reconstruction based on the model of the recent king penguin . |
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Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||
Oligocene to Miocene | ||||||||||
36 to 21.7 million years | ||||||||||
Locations | ||||||||||
Systematics | ||||||||||
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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
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.