{"id":2737,"date":"2026-03-09T14:08:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pdf-wonder.wordpress.blogicmedia.com\/?p=2737"},"modified":"2026-03-09T14:08:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T14:08:40","slug":"scientists-find-man-sized-prehistoric-penguin-that-lived-60-million-years-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/scientists-find-man-sized-prehistoric-penguin-that-lived-60-million-years-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists find man-sized prehistoric penguin that lived 60 million years ago"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>In December 2017, the science journal \u201cNature Communications\u201d published a description of a newly discovered species of prehistoric penguin that lived on what is now New Zealand 60 million years ago.  Scientists called it <em>Kumimanu biceae<\/em>, and it stood 1.77 meters (5 feet 10 inches) tall.  In other words, it could look the average man in the eye.  It also may have weighed as much as 220 pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>K. bicae<\/em> wasn\u2019t the biggest prehistoric penguin, however.  That distinction belongs to a behemoth that roamed Antarctica 37 million years ago \u2013 and stood six feet eight inches tall, making it as tall as some basketball players.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nGerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, who was an author of the study, pointed out that it\u2019s not a surprise that some penguins grew quite large.  He noted that flightless birds, in general, can become very large.  In fact, he believes that it\u2019s more surprising that there aren\u2019t any giant penguins now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nSeventeen penguin species currently roam the Earth.  The aptly-named Little Penguin, which lives in New Zealand, is the smallest at just 13 inches tall.  The Emperor Penguin is the largest living penguin and stands around four feet tall.  That\u2019s a fair-sized bird, but it\u2019s still only about as tall as a third-grade child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nIn addition to being big, <em>K. bicae<\/em> was one of the oldest penguins so far found; it appeared just five million years after the extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs.  <em>K. bicae<\/em> was also the oldest known giant penguin; the other species developed tens of millions years later.  Some of those giant penguins had relatives that were significantly smaller.  Mayr commented that gigantism in penguins developed early and appeared many times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nThe Cretaceous extinction event had opened up many ecological niches.  During the first few million years, small animals throve.  As the Earth recovered, some species grew larger and increasingly diverse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nMayr speculated that giant penguins were outcompeted by marine mammals like whales and seals.  He noted that the extinctions of giant penguins seem to have roughly correlated with the growing diversity of marine mammals.  He suspected that a combination of competition for food or breeding areas plus outright predation led to the demise of the biggest penguin species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\nMayr and his colleagues still aren\u2019t sure when penguins made the switch from flying to diving and swimming.  <em>K. bicae<\/em> had the anatomy of a diver rather than a flyer, and it was already flightless.  While scientists can say that flightlessness appeared early in penguin evolution, they can\u2019t say exactly when.  Nor do they know how it happened or what caused penguins to lose their flight capabilities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In December 2017, the science journal \u201cNature Communications\u201d published a description of a newly discovered species of prehistoric penguin that lived on what is now New Zealand 60 million years ago. Scientists called it Kumimanu biceae, and it stood 1.77 meters (5 feet 10 inches) tall. In other words, it could look the average man [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":2740,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"subtitle":"","format":"standard","video":"","gallery":"","source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":""},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nature"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2737"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2743,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2737\/revisions\/2743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pdf-wonders.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}