The Edinburgh Zoo in Scotland has reported that their oldest penguin has passed away after being attacked by a fox.
Mrs. Wolowitz, hatched in 1987, was a popular tourist destination. The Atlantic and the southern Indian Ocean native Northern Rockhopper lived twice as long as a typical penguin.
There were numerous Northern Rockhopper penguins at the zoo, including her. Financial Express wrote that Mr. Green, her only child, was born in 1991 when she was just 4 years old.
Fox Kills Oldest Penguin in Edinburgh Zoo
BBC News reported that Mrs. Wolowitz, a 35-year-old "big personality," northern rockhopper, was assaulted late Wednesday.
"Sadly, we lost her last night after a fox broke into our penguin enclosure," Edinburgh Zoo tweeted Thursday evening.
Fortunately, other penguins were unharmed and are doing well.
A Twitter netizen encouraged the zoo to make the enclosure safer for the penguins so animals could not get in.
The zoo replied and explained that although zookeepers checked the cages daily, wild animals may still get inside.
Edinburgh Zoo also assured that zookeepers are making ways how to make the barrier stronger.
A giant outdoor penguin pool in Europe, Penguins Rock is home to around 100 birds of three different species.
The Patagonian sea lion, who was 21 years old, died in June at Colchester Zoo.
Despite "all best efforts to heal her," 19-year-old zoo animal Paris passed away during an ear infection exam.
Last year, a fire at a petting zoo killed cockatoos, macaws, parrots, meerkats, armadillos, and skunks due to an electrical problem.
"We will never forget the beautiful animals that we have lost in such tragic circumstances," said Maldon Promenade Petting Zoo's barn in Essex in one report.
The zoo pointed out that some little fellows kept at their private farm were retired, resting, or previous stray pets that we desperately tried to care for.
SIMONS TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA - JUNE 29: An African penguin walks during a full moon at Boulders Beach June 29,2010 in Simon's Town, South Africa. The vulnerable species live in a penguin colony in False Bay that is part of Table Mountain National Park. Since breeding two pairs in 1982, the penguin colony has grown over the years to over 3,000. Tourists in country for the World Cup have brought double the usual numbers of people visiting the famous penguin breeding ground.
ALSO READ: Most Comprehensive Penguin Evolution Study Reveals Threats of Cold-Adapted Species to Global Warming
Penguin Vulnerability
According to National Geographic, penguins dart across frozen oceans and slide down snowy Antarctic hills, making them seem well adapted to their environment.
The fascinating birds were not always aquatic acrobats without wings, though, since the adaptation to swimming required the evolution of an almost wholly new set of skills, body types, and abilities.
A recent study uses a rare combination of genomic and fossil evidence to reconstruct that development in unprecedented detail and explore how climate affected penguin destinies.
Penguins are evolution's funniest creation, said study co-author Daniel Ksepka, an avian paleontologist at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut. Compared to their ancestors, they have radically different physical types and lifestyles.
The study, published in Nature Communications, shows that early penguins surprisingly quickly adapted to newly created environmental niches throughout the Southern Hemisphere during the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction 66 million years ago.
When the dinosaurs were extinct, more space opened up for other animals to flourish, and penguins occupied the southern hemisphere's many climates and biomes.
The study also reveals that penguins have the slowest known rate of evolution among all birds, suggesting that the rate of genetic changes has slowed significantly since they switched to marine life following the mass extinction.
The study's authors contend that this puts into question their ability to quickly adapt to the present pace of climate change.
Penguins evolved for maritime environments, but over millions of years, they have had to adjust to regular temperature changes.
A fresh increase in penguin species variety happened more than two million years ago when the most recent glacial era started.
As ice sheets grew and ecosystems changed, penguins were frequently removed from other groups and forced to relocate.
The several penguin species that exist now result from hundreds of thousands of years of penguin evolution, separated by ice.
Although earlier research anticipated this process, the most convincing evidence to date comes from the new genomic-fossil data combination.
RELATED ARTICLE: 100 Dead Penguins Found Near New Zealand Beach; Is This A Sign of Extinction for the Said Bird Species?
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