Giant penguins’ feather fossils found

WASHINGTON – Some ancient penguins may have been twice as big as today’s Emperor penguin but they lacked the dashing tuxedo.

Researchers unearthed remains of a nearly 5-foot-tall penguin that roamed what is now Peru about 36 million years ago, and they also discovered fossilized feathers that show the flightless bird was a motley mix of reddish-brown and gray.

Thursday’s report in the journal Science describes one of the largest penguins that ever lived, estimated to have been twice as heavy as the average Emperor penguin. The second species of giant penguin discovered in Peru, it was named Inkayacu paracasensis, or Water King, part of a cluster of now-extinct penguin species that apparently ranged over the Southern Hemisphere.

Paleontologist Julia Clarke of the University of Texas at Austin, who led the team, said, “Moving really slowly, flake by flake by flake through this giant block,” they uncovered a flipper with layers of small feathers.

Pigment is long gone in fossils. But left behind in feathers can be microscopic packets called melanosomes that contained color- producing pigments – and their shapes correspond to different colors. It turns out modern penguins have large melanosomes unlike those of any other known bird, while the extinct giant penguin’s smaller melanosomes resembled those of other birds, Clarke said.