School kids find giant penguin species with long legs (New Zeeland)

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Ancient New Zealand has been home to an incredible array of absurdly large birds. This has included a waist-high parrot, nicknamed Squawk-zilla (Heracles inexpectatus) – the largest parrot ever known on Earth, possibly hunting for flesh around 20 million years ago.

Now researchers have added a new giant penguin to this gloriously super-sized menagerie – one discovered by a lucky group of school kids back in 2006.

(fossil of similar species, tibiotarsus (bottom) compared to modern penguin)

"It's sort of surreal to know that a discovery we made as kids so many years ago is contributing to academia today. And it's a new species, even!" said Steffan Safey, who was one of the children on the Hamilton Junior Naturalist Club's field trip at the time. "Clearly the day spent cutting it out of the sandstone was well spent!"

"The penguin is similar to the Kairuku giant penguins first described from Otago but has much longer legs, which the researchers used to name the penguin waewaeroa – Te reo Māori for 'long legs'," explained zoologist Daniel Thomas from Massey University.

"These longer legs would have made the penguin much taller than other Kairuku while it was walking on land, perhaps around 1.4 meters tall, and may have influenced how fast it could swim or how deep it could dive."

Source: https://www.sciencealert.com/school-kids-discovered-another-giant-penguin-fossil-in-new-zealand-with-long-legs