Archive for January 2017
Taking another look at the Glen Murray Penguin
Today is Penguin Awareness Day! What better day to get back to blogging about fossil penguins. In this morning’s post, I’d like to summarize a recent project on New Zealand’s fossil penguins.
A short while back, Dr. Daniel Thomas and I had the chance to team up for our fourth penguin paper together. We re-examined the fossil known as the “Glen Murray Penguin”, a set of leg bones collected from rocks that are roughly 30-35 million years in age. This fossil is important because it is one of the few records of fossil penguins from the North Island of New Zealand (specimens from the South Island are plentiful).
Daniel Thomas (right) and I peruse the Bruce Museum’s duck and goose taxidermy collection.
The fossil bones were first reported over 30 years ago, by Jack Grant-Mackie and George Gaylord Simpson (subject of our previous post). At the time, the taxonomy of fossil penguins from the region was still rather poorly known. Few reasonably complete skeletons had been collected, so it was rather difficult to tell which species that new isolated discoveries belonged to. Thus, the significance of the Glen Murray specimen for penguin diversity remained largely unresolved since initial description. One thing is certain though – it was a huge penguin! The bones make those of your average zoo penguin look like miniature carvings.
3D printed leg bones of the Glen Murray Penguin, with the same bones from a Chinstrap Penguin for scale.
Dr. Thomas invited me to work on the specimen with him, and provided a wonderfully modern aid to collaboration. Although I had seen the Glen Murray Penguin in person in 2012, it was hard to make comparisons from just my photos. So, Dr. Thomas sent scanned the fossil with a laser scanner, printed out a 3D copy, and sent it right over. It was spectacular to be able to hold a precise replica of a fossil while the real thing was sitting on the other side of the world, and of course this helped facilitate our discussions.
After some anatomical work, we determined that the Glen Murray penguin shares two key traits that are only seen in the extinct genus Kairuku: the femur is very stout and the end of the tibiotarsus has a distinctly convex inner face. This led us to conclude that the Glen Murray penguin is most likely a new species of Kairuku which is distinct from its southern brethren, though we decided to wait until more of the skeleton is found to test this hypothesis before we go about applying names. Hopefully we will learn more about this penguin as more fossils are collected on the North Island – something I am sure Dr. Thomas has big plans to make happen!
Two Kairuku penguins come ashore, passing a stranded Waipatia dolphin. Artwork by Chris Gaskin, owner and copyright owner: Geology Museum, University of Otago. Used with permission.
References:
Grant-Mackie M.J.A., and G.G. Simpson. 1973. Tertiary penguins from the North Island of New Zealand. J Roy Soc New Zeal. 3:441–451.
March of the Fossil Penguins 