New Zealand ’s reputation as a place for unusual wight not often found anywhere else in the man is well merit , but back in 2004 , a bully dodo Orion stumbled across the bones of something that frustrate even scientists . Now , they have reveal they belong to a newly described species of gargantuan penguin , one that would have stood as grandiloquent as a human being .
World , meetKumimanu biceae , a literal monster ( Kumimanu imply “ monster bird ” in M?ori ) that would have measured around 1.77 meters ( 5 feet 10 inches ) at maximum swim length and weigh around 100 kilograms ( 220 pounds ) .
This was no tap - dance , tuxedo - wearing little cutie .
Kumimanu biceaewould have stood well above a modern-day emperor penguin.
account in the journalNature Communications , K.biceaehas been date to the late Paleocene 60 - 55 million years ago , and although not the largest giant penguin fossil ever discovered ( that would be the 2 - meter - tallPalaeeudyptes klekowskiidiscovered in 2014),itis the oldest .
discover by The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa ’s conservator Alan Tennyson and workfellow on Otago beach near Christchurch on the South Island in 2004 , the bone sherd sat on a ledge at Te Papa until 2015 .
“ When we found it we did n’t eff what it was , because it was whole case in rock , ” Tennysonexplained . “ But as soon as the extraction began , we realise that is was the cadaver of an tremendous birdie . ”
Artistic reconstruction ofKumimanu biceae, in comparison with a human.
Along with Centennial State - author of the subject field , Paul Scofield and Vanesa De Pietri of Canterbury Museum , and Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt , Tennyson identified the fragments of leg os and flipper as a previously unknown species of stupendous penguin .
And it was not a penguin to be messed with .
“ It ’s hard to fix precisely what it would have looked like in aliveness , but it would have been very telling , as improbable as many people , and a very solid , muscly animate being build to hold up frequent cryptical nosedive to enamour its quarry , ” Tennyson said .
“ It would not have been the variety of bird that someone could becharm live , it would have been substantially more potent than a soul . ”
The authors suggest in their cogitation that the date of this new dodo lends evidence to the idea that gigantism in penguin develop briefly after they became flightless loon .
However , grounds also suggests these ancient gargantuan penguins went out around 20 million year ago , coinciding with the ascent of saw-toothed maritime mammals such as whales and seals , though it is unsung whether this was due to competition for quarry or being prey themselves .
