Evolution of penguins

459 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Ancient penguin evolution

Evolution of penguins
For this evolution project, I choose to research Penguins. The classification for this animal is as follows: K Neornithes, P Palaeognathae, C Neognathae, O Pelecaniformes, F Procellariformes, G Graviidae, S Spheniscidae. The first fossil penguin that was found, is today being held in the British Museum of Natural History. It was reportedly found by an anonymous Maori in New Zealand in 1859 and was named Palaeeudyptes Antarcticus despite the fact that the species was located far away from Antarctica. Since that discovery many more fossils were found and were dated back to the Miocene era and three others from the Pliocene era. Several fossils were dated to the Late Pliocene era and others from the Recent era. The earliest avian fossil found in the southern hemisphere is said to have existed in the Eocene age about 38-54 million years ago. There is evidence that at least three of the modern penguins (Aptenodytes, Spheniscus and Pygoscelis) went extinct within the last 4-5 million years. The remainder of the penguins are from 5-40 million years ago, dating back to the time currently recorded, when penguins evolved from other modern birds. Research suggests that the tallest of these penguins were about 6 feet tall. Penguins did originate from an ancestor that flew some 40 million years ago. The common ancestor is assumed to have been somewhat similar to a modern-day diving petrel or auk in appearance and behavior.
The main evolutionary advantage of giving up aerial flight is the improved swimming ability; in particular being able to swim quickly helps in catching fish and being able to dive to great depths (studies show that some modern penguins can dive up to 300meters) which greatly increases the range of food which is available to hunt. Another major influence in the evolution of penguins is likely to have been the availability of vast amounts of food in the ocean. The beak up of the Proto-continent, Gondwanaland, was completed around 200,000,000 years ago and left the Antarctic continent completely surrounded by an ocean. The resulting cold currents established in the southern ocean (once the polar ice cap had formed) made them rich in nutrients and then led to the huge amounts of fish and crustaceans in the area.

Show More
Related

  • California Condor

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    Paul, Gregory S. (2002). "Looking for the True Bird Ancestor". Dinosaurs of the Air: The Evolution and Loss of Flight in Dinosaurs and Birds. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 171–224. ISBN 0-8018-6763-0.

    Read More

  • The Evolution of Whales

    1202 Words  | 3 Pages

    Image sitting on the beach one July morning. The sun is beaming down and decide to go for a swim. As you approach the water, you see a whale unusually close. You begin to get nervous as it continues to approach the shore. However, you aren’t worried because you know that they are confined to the sea. As the whale comes near you can see it clearly. Just as you think that it will turn around, the whale walks out of the ocean!

    Read More

  • A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    Blanche Dubois the main character of the play, was an English teacher in Mississippi. She presents herself as a very prim, proper, and prudent person. She once proudly told her sister Stella that her name in French meant white woods. Blanche Dubois is also overly concerned with her appearance, accessories, bathing and age. She was very disturbed by the light, and usually preferred to be in the dark. Many believe it was to prevent people from noticing her real age. Deep inside she was hurt and destroyed. All of this pain was caused by the death of the love of her life. She was married to a young man named Allan, and they loved each other very much. Until one day Blanche found out that Allan was sleeping with another man. Once she confessed to him she knew his secret he committed suicide. Ever since, Blanches’ life was never the same again.

    Read More

  • Streetcar Named Desire Isolation Analysis

    1165 Words  | 3 Pages

    She presents herself as a very outspoken person, however, we as an audience learn that she is very fragile, this can be seen through her drinking habits and also by the way she vents to Mitch as she unravels her true self. And, so when her lies are detected he is the first to realise that she was battling against her own insecurities and needed someone to comfort as she had putting up a strong front. Furthermore, when Blanche suffered from the loss of Belle Reeve and witnessed the death of her family members and lost her partner she decided to fill the void by working at the hotel as she states that “Intimacies with strangers was all I seemed to able to fill my empty heart with” (scene nine). For the longest time Blanche showed no emotion in relation to grief. Blanche also attempts to save Stella from the marriage which can be seen in the quote “He acts like an animal, has an animal’s habits! Eats like one, moves like one, talks like one!” (Scene four) inferring that she should not compromise Stanley’s bad behaviour. Nonetheless, Blanche’s dark past follows her to New Orleans as Stella finds it hard to believe Blanche after learning about her promiscuous past from her husband. The relationship between Blanche and Stella is broken due to misconceptions and so Blanche remains an outcast to society. Eventhorugh Blanche was grieving and needed some form of comfort as she had been completely isolated

    Read More

  • Blanche's Escape In A Streetcar Named Desire

    314 Words  | 1 Pages

    When Blanche DuBois visits her sister, Stella in Elysian Fields for the first time, it becomes clear that the two sisters’ images each woman has been displaying is glossed over. The secrecy each sister maintains suggests tension developing overtime due to contrasting opinions about the proper way to live. The first instance of potential disconnect between characters is Blanche’s tendency towards alcoholism, evident as soon as she arrives in Stella’s home. Blanche notices a bottle of whiskey peeking out of a closet and helps herself to a glass before “tossing it down.” She then “carefully replaces the bottle and washes out the tumbler at the sink.” Soon, as Stella arrives to greet Blanche, Blanche puts on this act of innocence and pretends to find the alcohol for the first time in Stella’s presence: “I know you must have some liquor on the place! Where could it be, I wonder?

    Read More

  • The Evolution of Whales

    1101 Words  | 3 Pages

    The origin of modern day whales, a mystery that has puzzled paleontologists for years, may have just been solved with the discovery of an ankle bone. This discovery might sound simple and unimportant, but the bones of these ancient animals hold many unanswered questions and provide solid proof of origin and behavior. The relationship between whales and other animals has proven to be difficult because whales are warm-blooded, like humans, yet they live in the sea. The fact that they are warm-blooded suggests that they are related to some type of land animal. However, the questions of exactly which animal, and how whales evolved from land to water, have remained unanswered until now.

    Read More

  • Blanche Dubois: A Tragic Hero

    876 Words  | 2 Pages

    Blanche could not accept her past and overcome it. She was passionately in love with Alan; but after discovering that he was gay, she could not stomach the news. When she revealed how disgusted she was, it prompted Alan to commit suicide. She could never quite overcome the guilt and put it behind her. Blanche often encountered flashbacks about him. She could hear the gun shot and polka music in her head. After Alan’s death, she was plagued by the deaths of her relatives. Stella moved away and did not have to deal with the agony Blanche faced each day. Blanche was the one who stuck it out with her family at Belle Reve where she had to watch as each of her remaining family members passed away. “I took the blows in my face and my body! All of those deaths! The long parade to the graveyard! Father, Mother! Margaret, that dreadful way! You just came home in time for the funerals, Stella. And funerals are pretty compared to deaths. Funerals are quiet, but deaths—not always” (Scene 1, page 1546). Blanche lost Belle Reve because of all the funeral expenses. Belle Reve had been in her family for generations, and it slipped through her fingers while she watched helplessly. Blanche’s anguish caused her loneliness. The loneliness fueled her abundance of sexual encounters. Her rendezvous just added to her problems and dirtied her rep...

    Read More

  • The Evolution Of Penguins

    609 Words  | 2 Pages

    These penguins lived after the Castastrophic event “Cretaceuous” that demolished the dinosaurs and many other species. Based on the DNA analyses and avaiable evidence of modern birds, we think the modern bird- lineages, including penguins, some how managed to survive through the Cretaceuous. Also it’s not shocking these fossils were found in New Zeland. The South Pacific and Southern oceans were free of predatory mammals, had abundant food, and had space for Penguins to breed. But the Southern Pacific is not the only area where Penguins inhabit. Many of modern penguins “Aptrenodytes” are located in the Antarctic. Recenelty it was discovered that there was a over looked feature on the surface of the fossil penguins flipper bone. These grooves were easily missed because the look was similar to tendons and muscles in the same area. It was discovered that these grooves were blood vessels that make up a counter current heat exchanger called “humeral arterial plexus” which allows penguins to limit the heat loss through the flippers. Also it helped Penguins maintain their core body temperature in cold water allowing them to survive long journeys in the cold waters. Although Penguins have luckily been able develop these traits to survive the dramatic shifts in climate, the world population can not mistake their success as resilience towards global warming.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Jane Gay's Bad Feminist By Roxane Gay

    1224 Words  | 3 Pages

    The first is if strength and survival the same. In other words, does surviving something mean that you are strong. The second questions whether or not Young Adult fiction is too dark for its young readers, or if those readers need to be exposed to the dark circumstances life may hold.

    Read More

  • Evolutionary Biology: The Concept Of Transitional Species In Evolutionary Biology

    1320 Words  | 3 Pages

    The concept of transitional species is an important and complex notion in evolutionary biology. To begin with, there is no such thing as transitional species since all living things were always evolving in the past, not stopping at one stage or another, and they will continue to evolve in the future. In terms of evolutionary biology, we use the concept of transitional species as a way to dim ambiguity. Much like the use of the Linnean taxonomic system of species, we come up with concepts like transitional species to organize and classify species in order to understand their evolutionary roots and how those species changed through life’s history to become what they are today. “In the same way that the concept of species can be provisionally meaningful to describe organisms at a single point in time, the concept of transitional species can be provisionally meaningful to describe organisms over a length of time, usually quite a long time, such as hundreds of thousands or millions of years” (111). Though it can be difficult to distinguish what can be considered an ancestral species from another, the fossil record can show us how species change through time as they develop ways to adapt to stresses found in their environments. “In the modern sense, organisms or fossils that show intermediate stages between ancestral and that of the current state are referred to as transitional species” (222). The concept of transitional species is, in essence, fairly straight forward. This paper will outline the concept of transitional (or sometimes termed intermediate) species and the latter’s role in evolutionary biology, as well as go in depth about several common transitional species: Tiktaalik, an animal at the cusp between life in the water and ...

    Read More

  • Euthanasia: An Individual Choice

    1848 Words  | 4 Pages

    Euthanasia has many different meanings. Some consider euthanasia as meaning a gentle and easy passing, the good death of another, or mercy killing (Lane, 1). Others consider it to mean an intentional termination of life, by another, at the explicit request of the individual. This implies that the act would be initiated by the person who wishes to terminate his/her life, or some define it as to include both the voluntary and the involuntary termination of life (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, 1). Euthanasia is discussed in many places besides a hospital or doctor’s office. It is also discussed in churches, philosophy classes, taverns, street corners, homes, medical societies, nursing classes, hospices, journals, and legislative assemblies (Lane, 2).

    Read More

  • The Debate Over Euthanasia

    1210 Words  | 3 Pages

    The controversy over euthanasia has recently become highly publicized. However, this issue is not a new debate. Society has voiced its opinions on the subject for hundreds of years. Euthanasia, which is Greek for "good death", refers to the act of ending another person’s life in order to end their suffering and pain.1 Two forms, passive and active euthanasia, categorize the actions taken to end the person’s life. Passive euthanasia involves removing a patient’s life support, withholding food and water, and discontinuing medical treatments. Active euthanasia includes any direct action taken to cause the death of the person, such as administrating a lethal drug.2 The debate over this issue stems from moral, ethical, and religious beliefs. All of these standpoints either side with the patient dying a natural death or from an accelerated death by euthanasia.

    Read More

  • Macaroni Penguins

    385 Words  | 1 Pages

    Out of all of the species of penguins in the world, Macaroni Penguins are the ones who are the most unique. Macaroni Penguins are the largest of Eudyptes Penguins existing. This species of penguins stands out with their orange plumes that begin at the center patch of the forehead, extend along the crown, then drop down behind the red eyes these penguins hold. They are slightly bigger than the average size penguin, but still are very skilled swimmers. With this skill, these penguins mainly catch their food, which is crustaceans, squid, and also fish.

    Read More

  • The Desires in A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams

    738 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first principle character in this play is Blanche DuBois. She is a neurotic nymphomaniac that is on her way to meet her younger sister Stella in the Elysian Fields. Blanche takes two 2 streetcars, one named Desire, the other Cemeteries to get to her little sisters dwelling. Blanche, Stella and Stanley all desire something in this drama. Blanche desired a world without pain, without suffering, in order to stop the mental distress that she had already obtained. She desires a fairy tale story about a rich man coming and sweeping her off her feet and they ride away on a beautiful oceanic voyage. The most interesting part of Blanche is that through her unstable thinking she has come to believe the things she imagines. Her flashy sense of style and imagination hide the truly tragic story about her past. Blanche lost Belle Reve but, moreover, she lost the ones she loved in the battle. The horror lied not only in the many funerals but also in the silence and the constant mourning after. One cant imagine how it must feel to lose the ones they love and hold dear but to stay afterwards and mourn the loss of the many is unbearable. Blanche has had a streak of horrible luck. Her husband killing himself after she exposed her knowledge about his homosexuality, her advances on young men that led to her exile and finally her alcoholism that drew her life to pieces contemplated this sorrow that we could not help but feel for Blanche throughout the drama. Blanche’s desire to escape from this situation is fulfilled when she is taken away to the insane asylum. There she will have peace when in the real world she only faced pain.

    Read More

  • Blanche Dubois Monologue Analysis

    1331 Words  | 3 Pages

    While the monologue addresses the painful situations Blanche has been party to, it is not meant to explain. Instead, it takes on a sarcastically bitter undertone were Blanche’s feelings of resentment towards Stella are hidden under the line level. Here the text develops an image of Blanche stabbing an accusatory finger at Stella while venting her frustrations. This pattern can be observed once again when Blanche cries out, “Sometimes their breathing is hoarse, and sometimes it rattles, and sometimes they even cry out to you…” The repetition in this instance helps to emphasize the descriptions that come after each repeated word. By drawing specific attention to these areas, Blanche is luring the audience towards her side, causing them to empathize with her situation—how it was Stella’s fault for abandoning Blanche when she needed the support. Stella appears as the despicable one for letting Blanche suffer through these moments

    Read More

More about Evolution of penguins

Open Document