Waimanu, the first penguin
Within a few million years of the impact, a bird in New Zealand has already given up flight for swimming.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 4 million years
- Known to
- ± 2 million years
- Era
- Paleocene, Cenozoic
Waimanu, from the Waipara Greensand of New Zealand, is the oldest known penguin, a loon-like diving bird already flightless and already propelling itself with its wings underwater. Its age is striking: the commitment to wing-propelled diving happens almost immediately after the extinction, plausibly because the marine reptiles that had dominated those waters were gone. Penguins get their start not by outcompeting anyone but by walking into a vacancy left by the mosasaurs.