Giant Penguins!

[Technomancer]

This doesn't really have much to do with anything; I just thought five-foot penguins were cool.

http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070625/full/070625-3.html

[K. Ayato]

A five-foot tall penguin? Yikes! That makes the Emperor penguin (tallest living species of penguin at 3 feet) look like a midget.

[Technomancer]

I recall that there was another fossil species found in New Zealand and Antartica that stood over six feet high. I believe it was supposed to have lived during the Eocene and early Oligocene epochs (roughly the same age as the recent finds in Peru).

[Tenshi no Ai]

I'm not surprised^^ Everything was gigantic back then. Turtles as big as vending machines and so forth... I am just SO glad that the giant bugs are gone. If I ever saw a 6 ft centipede walk by, I'd scream murder! >_<

[bigsleepj]

It's the giant electric penguin from season three!

[mitsuki lover]

And they all were named Cobblepot!

Ok,I shall be serious here,just needed to make one Batman related joke,and now that I have that out of my system:

What I found interesting reading about it in the paper today is that they say that those 'giant' sized penguins were more adapted to warmer climates and had killer beaks.The article I read also noted that just because penguins in the past were acclimatized to the warmer weather doesn't imply that the same can be said for the present day species that we have waddling around.

It also seemed to imply that the penguins actually radiated out from the
equator.

It would appear that the current height of modern species of penguins had to do with adapting to the changing weather and to the colder climate they wound up in,along with the adaption of thicker fur.I don't see any of those
giant penguins surviving long in the Antarctic like their descendants.

[Technomancer]

From what I remember, the oldest penguin fossils were found in New Zealand and are considerably older than the recent Peruvian finds. Since similarly large fossils have been found both there and in Antarctica itself, it would also seem that size isn't necessarily a response to climactic conditions. Anyways, one would also have to investigate the actual climates of these periods along with the relative continental positions (the things do move after all!)

[Alexander]

*whistles*

I remember once seeing a fossil of an ancient shark that was so large it could swallow a small car.

It makes me wonder, because animals were bigger back then, how large would humans have been? 9 feet? 12 feet? It's astounding to imagine...

[Tsuki]

It also seemed to imply that the penguins actually radiated out from the
equator..

It kinda makes sense though, It seems to me that everything is bigger near the equator. The trees, the bugs, the cats, the spiders, the snakes, and look at the elephants. And then I suppose the smaller the crater the easier it is for them to adapt to the cold....maybe that's why the mamaths have gone exstinked....maybe. But don't listen to me, most of the time I have no idea what im talking about.

(when I first read this, I though it said a giant penguin with five feet.)

[Technomancer]

Well, I did some checking, and it seems that penguins were reasonably well adapted to the cold to begin with. New Zealand and Australia, where similar fossils have been found were quite a bit further to south during this time (Antarctica on the other hand, has not moved very much at all).

[mitsuki lover]

But remember from science class that the antarctic was also much warmer back
billions of years ago.

[Technomancer]

Well it depends on the specific time. During the mid-Cretaceous Antarctica was pretty warm, although by the end of the period, it was only a few degrees warmer than it is now. However, I think the ice sheets only began to form sometime in the early-to-mid Cenozoic (~40 million years ago).

[Little T-chan]

Ooh...+_+; I'm guessing those penguins weren't as cute as the ones we're use to seeing nowadays..^^; Nonetheless, that's very interesting~ I didn't even know penguins existed outside of Antarctica besides in zoos. Shows how ignorant I am...-0-;

[mitsuki lover]

Actually they do exist in other parts of the world such as South Africa.Though the ones that are most familiar to us such as the Emperor are from the Antarctic.
Though the one in Gotham as been noted to liking expensive type of ice such as
diamonds,ok that will be my SECOND reference to Batman...LOL!