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A tiny penguin that waddled , swam and plunk around the coasts of southern New Zealand 24 million years ago is " fundamental " to deciphering how livingpenguinsgot their wing , a newfangled study find .
Researchers first unearthed fossils of the 1 - foot - magniloquent ( 0.3 meter ) penguin back in the 1980s , but it has been an evolutionary mystery for tenner , despite being one of the small penguins ever discovered .
An artist reconstruction of Pakudyptes, which is one of the smallest penguins on record.
A team has now re - analyzed the fossils and find they belong to a antecedently unknown species calledPakudyptes hakataramea . Pakudyptescombines the Māori word " paku , " mean " small " with the Greek Holy Writ " dyptes , " meaning " diver , " according to the researcher ’s study publish Wednesday ( July 31 ) in theJournal of the Royal Society of New Zealand .
The fresh described specie plugs an important gap in penguin wing evolution because its shoulder joint joints are very similar to those of present - day penguin , while its elbow joint joints are very similar to out penguins .
" Pakudyptesis the first fogy penguin ever chance with this combination , and it is the ' key ' dodo to unlocking the phylogeny of penguin offstage , " work lead authorTatsuro Ando , a curator at Ashoro Museum of Paleontology in Japan , say in astatement .
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With a stand tallness of around 11.8 to 13.8 inch ( 30 to 35 centimeters),P. hakatarameawas about the same size of it as the modest animation penguins — little blue penguin ( Eudyptula minor ) — and thesmallest extinct penguin — Wilson ’s piffling penguin ( Eudyptula wilsonae ) .
TheP. hakatarameafossils consist of three bones collect from the Hakataramea Quarry in South Canterbury in 1987 . The team usedcomputed tomography ( CT ) scannersto create a virtual , 3D look-alike of the stiff and then compare them to those of experience penguin , which allowed the researchers to at last place this new species on the Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree of life .
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P. hakatarameahad heavy bones like living penguins , which would have been suited for swimming and diving , according to the subject . The empty part of the bones — the medullary cavity — was also standardized to small blue penguins , which typically pass time in shallow water supply , so it may have done the same .
Most fossil penguins are large , at around 3.3 feet ( 1 m ) , so this petite penguin also serve researchers learn more about how penguins diversified between when it was alive at the oddment of the Oligocene epoch ( 33.9 million to 23.03 million year ago ) and the beginning of the Miocene epoch ( 23.03 million to 5.3 million years ago ) .
" Penguins evolved quickly from the Late Oligocene to Early Miocene and Pakudyptes is an important fossil from this full point , " subject field co - authorCarolina Loch , a fourth-year lecturer in the department of unwritten science at the University of Otago , say in the argument . " Its humble size and unique combination of bones may have contributed to the ecological variety of mod penguin . "
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