Story: Penguins
British palaeontologist Thomas Huxley made this drawing of a fused ankle bone (tarsometatarsal) from the first finding of a penguin fossil. It was discovered in New Zealand at Kakanui, North Otago, in 1848. It belonged to a penguin that lived about 30 million years ago. The bone is dense, unlike a flying bird’s bones, which suggests that penguins had already long given up flight by that stage of their evolutionary history. Huxley gave it the name Paleeudyptes antarcticus.
About this item
Private collection
Reference: T. H. Huxley, 'On a fossil bird and a fossil cetacean from New Zealand.' Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London 15 (1859): 672
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