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Palaeeudyptinae
Palaeeudyptinae, the giant penguins, is a paraphyletic subfamily of prehistoric penguins. It includes several genera of medium-sized to very large species, such as ''Icadyptes salasi'', '' Palaeeudyptes marplesi'', ''Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi'', and '' Pachydyptes ponderosus''. ''Icadyptes'' reached in height, while members of ''Palaeeudyptes'' and ''Anthropornis'' grew even taller and were some of the largest penguins to have ever existed. The massive ''P. ponderosus'' may have weighed at least as much as an adult human. Lineage They belonged to an evolutionary lineage more primitive than modern penguins. In some taxa at least, the wing, while already having lost the avian feathering, had not yet transformed into the semi-rigid flipper found in modern penguin species: While the ulna and the radius were already flattened to increase propelling capacity, the elbow and wrist joints still retained a higher degree of flexibility than the more rigidly lockable structure found in moder ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Penguin
Penguins (order (biology), order List of Sphenisciformes by population, Sphenisciformes , family (biology), family Spheniscidae ) are a group of Water bird, aquatic flightless birds. They live almost exclusively in the Southern Hemisphere: only one species, the Galápagos penguin, is found north of the Equator. Highly adapted for life in the water, penguins have Countershading, countershaded dark and white plumage and flippers for swimming. Most penguins feed on krill, fish, squid and other forms of sea life which they catch with their bills and swallow it whole while swimming. A penguin has a spiny tongue and powerful jaws to grip slippery prey. They spend roughly half of their lives on land and the other half in the sea. The largest living species is the emperor penguin (''Aptenodytes forsteri''): on average, adults are about tall and weigh . The smallest penguin species is the Little penguin, little blue penguin (''Eudyptula minor''), also known as the fairy penguin, whic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Palaeeudyptes
''Palaeeudyptes'' is an extinct genus of large penguins, currently containing four accepted species. They were probably larger than almost all living penguins, with the smaller species being about the size of an emperor penguin, and the largest species, ''Palaeeudyptes klekowskii'', having stood up to tall and weighed up to . Known species Of the four species, two (''P. gunnari'' and ''P. klekowskii'') are known from numerous remains found in Middle or Late Eocene strata (34 to 50 MYA) of the La Meseta Formation on Seymour Island, Antarctica. ''P. antarcticus'', the first fossil penguin described, is only really known from a single incomplete tarsometatarsus found in the Late Oligocene Otekaike Limestone (23 to 28, possibly up to 34 MYA) at Kakanui, New Zealand, but numerous other bones have been tentatively assigned to the species. The other described New Zealand species, ''P. marplesi'', is known from parts of a skeleton, mainly leg bones, from the Middle or Late Eocene Bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anthropornis
''Anthropornis'' is a genus of giant penguin that lived 45-33 million years ago, during the Late Eocene and the earliest part of the Oligocene.Myrcha, A., Jadwiszczak, P., Tambussi, C.P., Noriega, J.I., Gazdzicki, A., Tatur, A., and Valle, R.A. (2002). "Taxonomic Revision of Eocene Antarctic Penguins Based on Tarsometatarsal Morphology". ''Polish Polar Research'', 23(1): 5-46 Description ''Anthropornis'' reached in length from the tip of the beak to the tip of the tail, and in weight. There is also an estimate that one remain of ''Anthropornis'' can reach that body length of and in weight. Fossils of it have been found in the La Meseta Formation on Seymour Island off the coast of Antarctica and in New Zealand. By comparison, the largest modern penguin species, the emperor penguin, is just long. The type species, ''Anthropornis nordenskjoldi'', had a bent joint in the wing, probably a vestigial Vestigiality is the retention, during the process of evolution, of gen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pachydyptes
''Pachydyptes'' is an extinct genus of penguin. It contains the single species ''Pachydyptes ponderosus'', the New Zealand giant penguin. This taxon is known from a few bones from Late Eocene (37 to 34 MYA) rocks in the area of Otago, which were found in two clades near a base of a tree (Ksepka et al., 2006). G.G. Simpson, an evolutionary biologist, estimated a height of 140 to 160 cm (about 5 ft) and a weight of around 80 to possibly over 100 kg (Stonehouse, 1975). it was the second-tallest penguin ever, surpassed only by ''Anthropornis nordenskjoeldi ''Anthropornis'' is a genus of giant penguin that lived 45-33 million years ago, during the Late Eocene and the earliest part of the Oligocene.Myrcha, A., Jadwiszczak, P., Tambussi, C.P., Noriega, J.I., Gazdzicki, A., Tatur, A., and Valle, R.A ...'' in height, but probably not in weight. This was because of the clade's evolutionary history, where many early penguins were typically found larger in size (Ksepka ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Icadyptes
''Icadyptes'' is an extinct genus of giant penguins from the Late Eocene tropics of South America. Etymology The genus name is a combination of "''Ica''" for the Peruvian region where the type species was found and "dyptes" from the Greek word for diver. The species epithet "salasi" refers to Rodolfo Salas Gismondi, a noted Peruvian paleontologist. Description Standing about tall, the penguin was much larger than any of its modern-day cousins, yet ''Icadyptes salasi'' is merely the third largest penguin ever described. It had an exceptionally long spear-like beak resembling that of a heron. The researchers who discovered the penguins believe the long, pointed beaks to be the likely ancestral shape for all penguins. Discovery The fossilised remains of the penguin, which lived approximately 36 million years ago, were found in the Otuma Formation, [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "dawn") and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the ''Grande Coupure'' (the "Great Break" in continuity) or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Siberia and in what is now Chesapeake Bay. As with other geologic periods, the strata that define the start and end of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joint
A joint or articulation (or articular surface) is the connection made between bones, ossicles, or other hard structures in the body which link an animal's skeletal system into a functional whole.Saladin, Ken. Anatomy & Physiology. 7th ed. McGraw-Hill Connect. Webp.274/ref> They are constructed to allow for different degrees and types of movement. Some joints, such as the knee, elbow, and shoulder, are self-lubricating, almost frictionless, and are able to withstand compression and maintain heavy loads while still executing smooth and precise movements. Other joints such as sutures between the bones of the skull permit very little movement (only during birth) in order to protect the brain and the sense organs. The connection between a tooth and the jawbone is also called a joint, and is described as a fibrous joint known as a gomphosis. Joints are classified both structurally and functionally. Classification The number of joints depends on if sesamoids are included, age of the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mammal
Mammals () are a group of vertebrate animals constituting the class Mammalia (), characterized by the presence of mammary glands which in females produce milk for feeding (nursing) their young, a neocortex (a region of the brain), fur or hair, and three middle ear bones. These characteristics distinguish them from reptiles (including birds) from which they diverged in the Carboniferous, over 300 million years ago. Around 6,400 extant species of mammals have been described divided into 29 orders. The largest orders, in terms of number of species, are the rodents, bats, and Eulipotyphla (hedgehogs, moles, shrews, and others). The next three are the Primates (including humans, apes, monkeys, and others), the Artiodactyla ( cetaceans and even-toed ungulates), and the Carnivora (cats, dogs, seals, and others). In terms of cladistics, which reflects evolutionary history, mammals are the only living members of the Synapsida (synapsids); this clade, together with Saur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cetaceans
Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals that includes whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively carnivorous diet. They propel themselves through the water with powerful up-and-down movement of their tail which ends in a paddle-like fluke, using their flipper-shaped forelimbs to maneuver. While the majority of cetaceans live in marine environments, a small number exclusively reside in brackish water or fresh water. Having a cosmopolitan distribution, they can be found in some rivers and all of Earth's oceans, and many species inhabit vast ranges where they migrate with the changing of the seasons. Cetaceans are famous for their high intelligence and complex social behaviour as well as for the enormous size of some of the group's members, such as the blue whale which reaches a maximum confirmed length of 29.9 meters (98 feet) and a weight of 173 tonnes (190 short tons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pinnipeds
Pinnipeds (pronounced ), commonly known as seals, are a widely range (biology), distributed and diverse clade of carnivorous, fin-footed, semiaquatic, mostly marine mammal, marine mammals. They comprise the extant taxon, extant family (biology), families Odobenidae (whose only living member is the walrus), Otariidae (the eared seals: sea lions and fur seals), and Phocidae (the earless seals, or true seals). There are 34 extant species of pinnipeds, and more than 50 extinct species have been described from fossils. While seals were historically thought to have descended from two ancestral lines, molecular phylogenetics, molecular evidence supports them as a monophyletic lineage (descended from one ancestral line). Pinnipeds belong to the order Carnivora; their closest living relatives are Musteloidea, musteloids (Mustelidae, weasels, Procyonidae, raccoons, skunks, and red pandas), having diverged about 50 million years ago. Seals range in size from the and Baikal sea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages. The Miocene boundaries are not marked by a single distinct global event but consist rather of regionally defined boundaries between the warmer Oligocene and the cooler Pliocene Epoch. During the Early Miocene, the Arabian Peninsula collided with Eurasia, severing the connection between the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and allowing a faunal interchange to occur between Eurasia and Africa, including the dispersal of proboscideans into Eurasia. During the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oligocene
The Oligocene ( ) is a geologic epoch of the Paleogene Period and extends from about 33.9 million to 23 million years before the present ( to ). As with other older geologic periods, the rock beds that define the epoch are well identified but the exact dates of the start and end of the epoch are slightly uncertain. The name Oligocene was coined in 1854 by the German paleontologist Heinrich Ernst Beyrich from his studies of marine beds in Belgium and Germany. The name comes from the Ancient Greek (''olígos'', "few") and (''kainós'', "new"), and refers to the sparsity of extant forms of molluscs. The Oligocene is preceded by the Eocene Epoch and is followed by the Miocene Epoch. The Oligocene is the third and final epoch of the Paleogene Period. The Oligocene is often considered an important time of transition, a link between the archaic world of the tropical Eocene and the more modern ecosystems of the Miocene. Major changes during the Oligocene included a global expansion o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
