TINY PREHISTORIC PENGUIN FOUND IN ANTARCTICA
Argentinian researchers discovered in Marambio Island, West Antarctic Peninsula, fossils of a tiny penguin that measured in life less than 35 cm tall. 34 million years ago, penguins reigned on Marambio Island (aka Seymour Island), with tiny specimens smaller than the blue penguin that currently exists in New Zealand, which are about 40 cm in height, to large specimens, as Palaeeudyptes klekowskii that could reach 2.20 m tall, much more than modern emperor penguins that inhabits today some regions of Antarctica. This new species of dwarf penguin was named Aprosdokitos mikrotero (unexpected minuscule).
-Carolina Costa Hospitaleche, who led the study, as reference of size with modern emperor penguin, and fossil antarctic penguins.
Penguins were and are a successful group of seabirds that have conquered different ecological niches, occupying marine coasts in diverse cold and temper-ate environments around the world. Evolutionarily speaking, they are viewed as conservative because their morphology shows little change since the Paleocene, 66 to 56 million years ago, although body size appears to be a variable feature both temporally and geographically.
According to the researcher, the finding of the Aprosdokitos mikrotero occurred in 2012. Meanwhile, in a current campaign, PhD. Hospitaleche found a new fossil of dwarf penguin, in a much older site, about 50 million years old.
Photo: Agencia CTyS
Reference: Hospitaleche et al., 2017. Aprosdokitos mikrotero gen. et sp. nov., the tiniest Sphenisciformes that lived in Antarctica during the Paleogene. Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und Paläontologie - Abhandlungen
