That CGI woman above has broken the first rule of ‘Giant Penguin Club’ – never turn your back.

You only make that mistake once.

Of course, you’ll never actually come across such a huge penguin, because all that remains of these birds are fossils that have been found on New Zealand’s South Island.

Scientists made the announcement yesterday, reports the Telegraph:

The giant waddling sea bird stood 1.6 metres (63 inches) high and weighed 80 kilograms, about four times heavier and 40cm taller than the modern Emperor penguin, researchers said.

Named “crossvallia waiparensis”, it hunted off New Zealand’s coast in the Paleocene era, 66-56 million years ago.

An amateur fossil hunter found leg bones belonging to the bird last year and it was confirmed as a new species in research published this week in “Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology”.

Canterbury Museum researcher Vanesa De Pietri said it was the second giant penguin from the Paleocene era found in the area.

“It further reinforces our theory that penguins attained great size early in their evolution,” she said.

It is believed that these giant birds eventually died out as other large marine predators like seals and toothed whales emerged.

Oh well, they had a good run.

The tallest penguin found today is the emperor penguin, which stands between 1,1 and 1,3 metres tall.

New Zealand can now add these ancient penguins to the list of other extinct giants like the moa, a flightless bird that stood around 3,6 metres tall (that’s a Faf de Klerk at 1,72 metres, standing on top of a Siya Kolisi, at 1,88 metres), and the Haast’s Eagle, which boasted a wingspan of three metres.

There was also the recent discovery of a parrot from 19 million years ago which stood one metre tall.

Yup, now you know.

[source:telegraph]