Bones From Extinct Giant Penguin Species Found in New Zealand

The Canterbury Museum in New Zealand has released a statement about a new discovery — the Crossvallia waiparensis, a giant penguin species from the Paleocene Epoch (between 66 and 56 million years ago).

According to the museum, the newly-found extinct species is one of the world’s oldest known penguin species and also one of the largest – taller even than today’s 1.2 metre Emperor Penguin – and weighing up to 70 to 80 kg.

The discovery is published in the journal Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology. The authors concluded that the closest known relative of C.waiparensis is a fellow Paleocene species Crossvallia unienwillia, which was identified from a fossilised partial skeleton found in the Cross Valley in Antarctica in 2000.

The giant penguin fossils were uncovered at the Waipara Greensand site and they will be displayed in a new exhibition about prehistoric New Zealand at Canterbury Museum later this year.