Penguins are funny sea birds that lack the ability to fly but are excellent swimmers. Many of us have probably seen how ridiculously these animals move on land or slip on ice.
Today's penguins rarely exceed one meter in length and appear to be fairly harmless animals to humans. But would we treat them in the same way if the average penguin were taller than a human and had a mass hovering around the 100 kg mark?
According to archaeologists, these are the kinds of giant penguins that used to inhabit our planet. Fossils of such a penguin, later attributed to the new species Kumimanu biceae, were found during excavations in New Zealand. It was established that Kumimanu inhabited the Earth about 55-59 million years ago - already after the dinosaurs had started dying out.
The fossilized remains of the penguin suggest that its body reached a length of 175 cm. It is unlikely that scientists caught the largest individual of this species, so we can assume that giant penguins reached a length of 180 cm - the average height of a modern man.
It is currently the largest penguin species we know of that has ever inhabited the planet.
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