Penguins lived at equator 42 million years ago

Jun 26, 2007, 4:41 GMT

Washington - Fossil discoveries in Peru could force scientists to fundamentally change their image of penguins.

According to a report published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the Tuxedo-clad feathered dwellers of the Antarctic lived at least three times earlier than previously thought, were larger than contemporary Kaiser Penguins and flourished in warmer climates.

The conclusions by a team of international researchers was based on the fossils of two newly discovered but long extinct species.

The giant penguin Icadyptes salasi stood 150 centimetres tall and lived 36 million years ago on the southern coast of Peru.

The second species, Perudyptes devriesi, was only half that size, but lived 6 million years earlier - or 42 million years ago.

The team of researchers from Peru, Argentina and the United States, including palaeontologist Julia Clarke of North Carolina State University, introduced the fossil finds in the US publication.

Both new species dispute the current theories that penguins developed in Antarctica and New Zealand less than 10 million years ago, and then spread to the equator.

More to the point, the surprising finds in Peru indicate that penguins lived 30 million years earlier and nearer the equator than thought, during one of the warmest periods of the past 65 million years.