Thursday 15 August 2019

In The Days Of The Dinosaurs,

most creatures seemed to be on steroids,


as everything seemed to grow so large, monster dragonflies with a wingspan of over 2 feet, and crocodiles over 30 feet long are just 2 examples and although reported some time ago I have just seen there were giant penguins, 60 million years ago, the monster penguin -yes, that's what they're calling it- of New Zealand would have made the modern day emperor penguin look short. Fossilized leg bones of a penguin found in North Canterbury indicate this bird was about 1.6 meters tall -that's 63 inches, or 5'3"!"This is one of the largest penguin species ever found," Paul Scofield, the museum's senior curator, told the BBC. It was specific to the waters of the Southern Hemisphere, he added, penguins are thought to have become this big because large marine reptiles disappeared from the oceans, around the same time that dinosaurs disappeared, "Then, for 30 million years, it was the time of the giant penguins," Mr Scofield said, you can read the monster penguin at BBC News, image credit: Canterbury Museum, as an aside it must have been a good design, they are still going strong today.


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