WATERFRONT
Real survivors
WHAT waddled on land but swam supremely in subtropical seas more than 60 million years ago after the dinosaurs were ultimately wiped out?
Fossil records show giant human-sized penguins swam through Southern Hemisphere waters – alongside smaller forms, similar in size to some Antarctica species today. Kupoupou stilwelli has been found on the remote Chatham Islands near New Zealand’s South Island and could be the oldest penguin known with proportions close to its modern relatives.
Kupoupou, "diving bird" in Te Re Moriori, lived around 60 million years ago, when there was no South Pole ice cap and the seas around New Zealand were sub-tropical.
The discovery was made by Jacob Blokland, a PhD palaeontology candidate,
