| Nordenskjold's Giant Penguin Fossil range: Late Eocene – Early Oligocene |
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| File:Anthropornis nordenskjoldi.jpg |
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| Anthropornis nordenskjoldi Wiman, 1905 |
Anthropornis nordenskjoldi, or Nordenskjold's Giant Penguin, was a penguin species that lived 45–37 million years ago, during the Late Eocene and the earliest part of the Oligocene. It reached 1.7 m (5 ft 7 in) in height and 90 kg (200 lb) in weight. Fossils of it have been found on Seymour Island off the coast of Antarctica and in New Zealand. By comparison, the largest modern penguin species, the Emperor Penguin, is just 1.2 m (3 ft 11 in) tall.
Anthropornis nordenskjoldi had a bent joint in the wing, probably a carryover from flying ancestors.
Trivia
The enormous six-footed and blind albino penguins in H. P. Lovecraft's 1931 novel At the Mountains of Madness were fictional cave-dwelling descendants of this bird. Their beaks were used for catching dinosaurs and that was their food.
References
The Annotated H. P. Lovecraft, edited by S. T. Joshi
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