''Aptenodytes ridgeni'', also referred to as Ridgen's penguin, is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

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: on ...

from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. It was intermediate in size between its living congeners, standing an estimated 90–100 cm tall. The remains were first found in 1968 on a

Canterbury region Canterbury ( mi, Waitaha) is a region of New Zealand, located in the central-eastern South Island. The region covers an area of , making it the largest region in the country by area. It is home to a population of The region in its current fo ...

beach by 11-year-old schoolboy Alan Ridgen.Gill, Brian James (1991). New Zealand's extinct birds. Random Century
p. 25
.

References

Aptenodytes Extinct birds of New Zealand Extinct penguins Pliocene birds Fossil taxa described in 1972 {{NewZealand-stub