''Perudyptes'' is a basal

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 ...

from the

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

Paracas Formation of

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

.''Perudyptes''
at

Fossilworks Fossilworks was a portal which provides query, download, and analysis tools to facilitate access to the Paleobiology Database, a large relational database assembled by hundreds of paleontologists from around the world. History Fossilworks was cr ...

.org The genus name ''Perudyptes'' is named after the country, while the species name ''devriesi'' Thomas DeVries, a Vashon Island High School science teacher who has long worked in Peru.

Description

''Perudyptes devriesi'' is a basal penguin from the Middle Eocene (

Mustersan The Mustersan age is a period of geologic time (48.0–42.0 Mya (unit), Ma) within the Eocene epoch of the Paleogene, used more specifically within the South American land mammal age (SALMA) classification. It follows the Casamayoran and precedes th ...

, ~42 Ma)

Paracas Formation Paracas or ''variation'', may refer to: Places * Paracas Peninsula, located in the Ica Region of Peru * Paracas Bay, located in the Pisco Province of the Ica Region in Peru * Paracas (municipality), the capital city of the Paracas District * Para ...

of Peru. This new discovery is able to fill a major phylogenetic and stratigraphic (~20 million year) gap between the earliest fossil penguins ('' Waimanu manneringi'' and '' Muriwaimanu tuatahi'', ~58–61.6 Ma) and the next oldest partial skeletons. The skull of ''Perudyptes'' is characterized by deep temporal fossae and an elongate, narrow beak that differs from other reported stem penguins in its short mandibular symphysis. The wing skeleton of Perudyptes preserves a combination of plesiomorphic features also observed in the basal penguin ''Waimanu'' and derived features shared with more crownward penguins.

References

Extinct penguins Eocene birds of South America Mustersan Paleogene Peru Fossils of Peru Fossil taxa described in 2007 {{Sphenisciformes-stub