New Zealand researchers were able to uncover the fossils of two penguin species that were previously unknown. Live Science reports that one of these findings is the largest penguin ever discovered, which weighs a whopping 340 pounds.
Sputnik News reports that in comparison, the typical male and adult Western lowland gorilla has a weight of 300 pounds, while, according to Healthline, a typical 20-year-old human from the US has a weight of 90 kg or 198 pounds.
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Largest Penguin Ever Discovered
Remnants of this interesting species, which is now classified as Kumimanu fordycei, were spotted with another eight specimens within boulders at the beach in North Otago. Five of the remnants were from another newly discovered penguin species, while one was part of an acknowledged gigantic penguin, the Kumimanu biceae. Two of these, however, lacked identification. Live Science reports that the rocks were from 59.5 or 55.5 million years ago.
Sputnik News reports that specialists think that these recently discovered penguin species may have lived roughly 60 million years ago. While they fall short of the Kumimanu's size, Petradyptes, one of the recently discovered small penguin species, were estimated to be large penguins that had a weight of around 110 pounds. Moreover, the emperor penguin, which is the largest present-day penguin, weighs only up to 88 pounds.
Such findings were jotted in the Journal of Paleontology. The bigger penguin was later classified as Kumimanu fordycei while the smaller one was named Petradyptes.
The New York Times reports that the scientists were able to estimate this monster bird's weight by making 3D models of the humongous humerus. They compared it with the shape and size of the ancient and present-day flipper bones of penguins. Through such efforts, it was estimated that the giant penguin weighed 340 pounds.
First author, paleontologist, and curator Daniel Ksepka mentions how, based on their analyses, K. fordycei is the largest penguin ever discovered and known.
Before such a discovery, the largest documented penguin was Palaeeudyptes klekowskiii, which lived roughly 37 million years ago in Antarctica. Live Science reports that this penguin species had a weight of around 256 pounds and a height of around 6.6 feet. Next to this was the K. biceae, which weighed roughly 267 pounds and had a length of 5.8 feet.
Ksepka also adds that the enormous size of K. fordycei does not indicate that an even larger species was not present.
Could Earlier Penguins Fly?
The two recently discovered species may have been some of the earlier prehistoric penguins. Ksepka remarked how their flipper bones were quite primitive and that these bore resemblances to birds that could soar and move underwater.
Live Science reports that the ability for penguins to fly was likely lost as they kept on favoring underwater activity instead. These flying abilities could have been lost roughly 60 million years ago, shortly before the emergence of such species.
Hence, such prehistoric penguins did not have the efficient flippers of present-day penguins as well as their younger prehistoric relatives.
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