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| 60 million years ago, penguins had close relatives to today’s yellow-eyed penguin, according to a new DNA analysis. (Photo: ABConline) |
New analysis of the oldest penguin fossils in the world has confirmed that some of these birds survived the mass extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
Penguins once inhabited the shallow seas off the eastern coast of New Zealand 60 million years ago. Now, a molecular study has brought them closer to modern penguins.
Co-author of the study, Professor Ewan Fordyce from the University of Otago, stated that penguins are a unique bird species that evolved much later than other birds.
“The discovery of them within a few million years around the time of the dinosaur extinction is compelling evidence that modern birds must have evolved earlier and diversified significantly during the dinosaur era</em," he said.
“It also shows that many bird species survived the dinosaur extinction catastrophe.”
The study combined genetic evidence regarding the evolutionary relationships between distant relatives of penguins such as albatrosses, giant petrels, ducks, and moa. Scientists used the DNA from these birds to create a broad family tree and then combined it with fossil evidence to predict when these bird species appeared in the past.
T. An
