Researchers have discovered fossils of a giant penguin from the Paleocene Moeraki Formation at Hampden Beach in the Otago region of New Zealand. They estimate the Paleocene giant penguin, Kumimanu biceae, was as big as an adult man. Some have likened it to the size of Pittsburg Penguins Sidney Crosby or 13 pounds lighter than President Trump.
The K. biceae specimen measured nearly 5’10” long when swimming and weighed approximately 223. When standing the bird was maybe only 5’3”. Comparatively, the largest extant penguin is the emperor in Antarctica stands less than 4” tall. Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, Germany and others describe the giant penguin in a paper released this week by the journal Nature Communications. They named it Kumimanu biceae. The genus name from kumi, which in Maori means a large and mythological monster, and manu, which is Maori for bird. The species name, biceae, honors Beatrice "Bice" A. Tennyson, the mother of study co-author Alan J.D. Tennyson, vertebrate curator at the Te Papa Museum in New Zealand.
The partial skeleton of a single individual is 56 million to 60 million years old. Including cranial end of left scapula, incomplete right coracoid, cranialmost portion of sternum, partial left humerus, incomplete proximal end of left ulna, right femur, right tibiotarsus lacking proximal end, partial synsacrum, three vertebrae, and various bone fragments. Following the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction 66 million years ago, the extinction best known for killing the dinosaurs, penguins grew large very quickly. Daniel Ksepka from the Bruce Museum of Greenwich, Connecticut, unaffiliated with the study, said this extinction event played a significant role in penguin history. Before the mass extinction a flightless sea birds could have been prey or in competition with the many larger animals living near or in the water. However, afterwards when the larger predator/competitors were wiped out, the ability to fly became less important and birds evolved towards larger sizes. Mayr’s paper concludes that large size has appeared more than once during penguin evolution.
The partly prepared skeleton of the Paleocene giant penguin Kumimanu biceae. The rectangles emphasize the humerus
and a bone from the shoulder girdle (coracoid), which are shown separated from the original bone cluster.
Later these giant penguins would begin to die out when large marine mammals like toothed whales and seals appeared in the oceans. They provided competition for safe breeding locations and food, and could have hunted the large penguins as well.
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