''Palaeeudyptes'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of large

penguin Penguins are a group of aquatic flightless birds from the family Spheniscidae () of the order Sphenisciformes (). They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere. Only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is equatorial, with a sm ...

s, currently containing four accepted

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

. They were probably larger than almost all living penguins, with the smaller species being about the size of an

emperor penguin The emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri'') is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is Endemism in birds, endemic to Antarctica. The male and female are similar in plumage and size, reaching in length and weighing fr ...

, and the largest species, '' Palaeeudyptes klekowskii'', estimated to reach long ( measuring tip of beak to tail) and weighed up to .

Known species

Of the four species, two (''P. gunnari'' and ''P. klekowskii'') are known from numerous remains found in Middle or Late

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

strata (34 to 50 MYA) of the La Meseta Formation on

Seymour Island Seymour Island or Marambio Island, is an island in the chain of 16 major islands around the tip of the Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula. Graham Land is the closest part of Antarctica to South America. It lies within the section of the isl ...

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean (also known as the Antarctic Ocean), it contains the geographic South Pole. ...

. ''P. antarcticus'', the first

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...

penguin described, is only really known from a single incomplete

tarsometatarsus The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bird bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) a ...

found in the Late

Oligocene The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch (geology), epoch of the Paleogene Geologic time scale, Period that extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that defin ...

Otekaike Limestone (23 to 28, possibly up to 34 MYA) at Kakanui,

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, but numerous other bones have been tentatively assigned to the species. The other described New Zealand species, ''P. marplesi'', is known from parts of a skeleton, mainly leg bones, from the Middle or Late

Burnside Mudstone (34 to 40 MYA) at Burnside, Dunedin. To this species also a number of additional remains have been tentatively assigned. The problem with the indeterminate New Zealand specimens is that they at least in part are intermediate in size between the two species. It may be that ''P. marplesi'' simply evolved into the smaller ''P. antarcticus''. Bones unassignable to species also were found on Seymour Island, but in these cases they seem to be from juvenile individuals or are simply too damaged to be of diagnostic value. In addition, an incomplete right

tibiotarsus The tibiotarsus is the large bone between the femur and the tarsometatarsus in the leg of a bird. It is the fusion of the proximal part of the tarsus with the tibia. A similar structure also occurred in the Mesozoic Heterodontosauridae. These ...

(

South Australian Museum The South Australian Museum is a natural history museum and research institution in Adelaide, South Australia, founded in 1856 and owned by the Government of South Australia. It occupies a complex of buildings on North Terrace in the cultur ...

P10862) and one left

humerus The humerus (; : humeri) is a long bone in the arm that runs from the shoulder to the elbow. It connects the scapula and the two bones of the lower arm, the radius (bone), radius and ulna, and consists of three sections. The humeral upper extrem ...

(South Australian Museum P7158) and assignable to this genus were found in the Late Eocene Blanche Point Marls at Witton Bluff near

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Additionally, an incomplete humerus identified as ''Palaeeudyptes'' was recovered in southernmost Chile, from middle to late Eocene beds of the Río Turbio Formation, near Puerto Natales, south from Torres del Paine National Park.

Phylogeny

The supposed genus '' Wimanornis'', based on two Seymour Island humeri, is apparently a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''P. gunnari''. The genus is the namesake for the subfamily of primitive penguins, Palaeeudyptinae. Altogether, their osteological characteristics seem to have been somewhat less advanced that those of the slightly smaller '' Archaeospheniscus'' and about on par with the gigantic '' Anthropornis''. The exact nature of the relationship of the Palaeeudyptinae to modern penguins is unknown.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q3889299 Extinct penguins Eocene birds Oligocene birds Cenozoic Antarctica Cenozoic animals of Oceania Paleogene Oceania Bird genera Prehistoric birds Prehistoric birds of Antarctica Extinct birds of New Zealand Fossil taxa described in 1859 Cenozoic animals of Antarctica

Known species

Phylogeny

See also

References