Study: Penguins came from Australia and New Zealand, not Antarctica
Penguins didn't start out as cold-water creatues, according to a new study.
When we think of penguins, most of us visualize black and white birds congregating in icy landscapes.
But as it turns out, penguins didn't originate in Antarctica, as scientists believed for years.
A new study out of the University of California shows they evolved in Australia and New Zealand some 22 million years ago. Scientists think the king and emperor penguins split off and moved to Antarctic waters due to the abundant food supply in the area.
It's believed a penguin's ability to live in both freezing and tropical waters evolved slowly, over millons of years.
For their study, researchers Rauri Bowie, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and curator in the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (MVZ) at Berkeley, and Juliana Vianna, associate professor of ecosystems and environment at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile in Santiago collaborated with museums and universities around the world to gather blood and tissue samples from 22 penguins representing 18 species. They then sequenced and analyzed their whole genomes to track penguin movement and diversification.
VIDEO: A HEART-WARMING MOMENT WHEN RESCUED BABY PENGUINS RELEASED INTO THE WILD
PENGUINS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
The study also looked at the impact of climate change on penguin populations. While penguins can adapt to different climates, researchers don't believe they will be able to adapt fast enough to account for rapidly-warming waters brought about by climate change.
"We are able to show how penguins have been able to diversify to occupy the incredibly different thermal environments they live in today, going from 9 degrees Celsius in the waters around Australia and New Zealand, down to negative temperatures in Antarctica and up to 26 degree in the Galapagos Islands," Bowie said a statement.
"But we want to make the point that it has taken millions of years for penguins to be able to occupy such diverse habitats, and at the rate that oceans are warming, penguins are not going to be able to adapt fast enough to keep up with changing climate."
The full paper will be published online this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Thumbnail image courtesy: Getty Images.
