Uncovering Africa’s oldest known penguins

Uncovering Africa’s oldest known penguins. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. March 26, 2013. Africa isn’t the kind of place you might expect to find penguins. But one species lives along Africa’s southern coast today, and newly found fossils confirm that as many as four penguin species coexisted on the continent in the past. Exactly why African penguin diversity plummeted to the one species that lives there today is still a mystery, but changing sea levels may be to blame. The fossil findings represent the oldest evidence of these iconic tuxedo-clad seabirds in Africa, predating previously described fossils by 5 to 7 million years. Picked up by Discovery, NBC news, Huffington Post, the UK Daily Mail and Scientific American.