Two Kairuku penguins come ashore, passing a stranded Waipatia dolphin. Artwork by Chris Gaskin, owner and copyright owner: Geology Museum, University of Otago..
Around 25 million years ago a penguin with a long, sharp beak and massive flippers lived in a New Zealand that was almost entirely underwater. The bird, named Kairuku after a Maori word that means “diver who returns with food,” was first discovered in 1977, but has only recently been reconstructed by scientists in a study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
“Kairuku was an elegant bird by penguin standards, with a slender body and long flippers, but short, thick legs and feet,” explains co-author Dan Ksepka with North Carolina State University in a press release. “If we had done a reconstruction by extrapolating from the length of its flippers, it would have stood over 6 feet tall. In reality, Kairuku was around 4-feet-2 inches tall or so.”
Kairuku was the biggest of five penguins species known from New Zealand at the time.
“The location was great for penguins in terms of both food and safety,” says Ksepka. “Most of New Zealand was underwater at that time, leaving isolated, rocky land masses that kept the penguins safe from potential predators and provided them with a plentiful food supply.”
Today, New Zealand and surrounding islands are still a hotspot for penguins, sporting six species. Unfortunately penguins worldwide are in crisis: over 60 percent of the world’s penguins (18 species) are currently threatened with extinction according to the IUCN Red List. Scientists believe that overfishing has decimated penguin prey populations, causing many of the flightless birds’ populations to decline. In addition, researchers worry that climate change is putting additional pressure on penguins.
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