3) Giant Penguin Fossil Found

This week I read about researchers unearthing the remains of a nearly 5-foot-tall penguin in Peru! This fossil is thought to be about 36 million years and whats interesting about it is that these penguins lacked the dashing tuxedo that they have nowadays.

This fossil however, showed that penguins didn't have that natural ability to swim and be in the water as they were twice as heavy as the average Emperor penguin today. Modern penguins have melanosomes packed into grape-like cluster unlike any other bird wile the extinct penguins's melanosomes resembles that of other birds. Melanin inside the melanosomes helps feathers resist breakage. One possible theory is that melanosomes got bigger during the penguins evolution as the birds became better underwater swimmers.

Knowing that scientists are constantly digging out fossils of animals that are twice as big as modern day animals makes me wonder how come animals got smaller or if this was beneficiary to them? If they are bigger, that helps them as predators but depending on environment changes maybe being big they would starve, couldn't reach high enough trees. Either way it's interesting that they found the fossils and that questions arise from the pigmentation of the penguins.

Link to site: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100930/ap_on_sc/us_sci_giant_penguin