Emperor penguin’s fossil relatives inhabited subtropical waters
Abstrak
Abstract Fossils can reveal large differences between the geographic range that a species could potentially inhabit and the more restricted realized distribution where individuals presently occur. Extant great penguins ( Aptenodytes Miller, 1778) include emperor and king penguins, which have polar and subpolar ranges, respectively. New evidence now reveals that the fundamental niche for great penguins includes much warmer environments. Here, we report the first skull of an extinct great penguin that lived in Zealandia during the mid-Piacenzian Warm Period (mPWP) when global temperatures were ~3°C above those of the preindustrial era. Because estimated sea-surface temperatures in Zealandia during the mPWP were 10–20°C warmer than those experienced by living emperor and king penguins, we hypothesize that the exclusion of great penguins from lower latitudes today reflects constraints more complex than climate pressures alone. Terrestrial predation might be an overlooked factor because Aptenodytes appears to have gone extinct in Zealandia coincident with the arrival of large raptors like Haast’s eagle, Hieraaetus moorei (Haast, 1872), and Forbes’ harrier, Circus teauteensis Forbes, 1892.
Penulis (4)
Alan JD Tennyson
Felix G Marx
Daniel T Ksepka
Daniel B Thomas
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2025
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 2×
- Sumber Database
- CrossRef
- DOI
- 10.1017/jpa.2025.10162
- Akses
- Open Access ✓