Penguins survived the time of dinosaurs extinction

Penguins 60 million years ago have relatives close to today's yellow-eyed penguins, a new, predictable DNA analysis. ( Photo: ABConline ) A new analysis of the world's oldest penguin fossils has confirmed that some of the animals survived a major extinction - a period of disappearance of the entire dinosaurs 65 million years ago. here.

The penguin once lived in shallow waters off the east coast of New Zealand 60 million years ago. Now a molecular study has pulled them closer to modern penguins.

The co-author of the study, Professor Ewan Fordyce from Otago University, said penguins are a special bird, evolving much later than other species.

" Finding them within a few million years around the time of the extinction of dinosaurs is convincing evidence that modern birds must evolve earlier and strongly differentiate in the dinosaur era ," he said.

" It also shows many species of birds that have survived the catastrophe of the dinosaurs ."

The study combined genetic evidence of an evolutionary relationship between distant penguin relatives like seagulls, large seagulls, ducks and moa birds. Scientists use these birds' DNA to create a wide family relationship framework, then combine it with fossil evidence, to predict when these birds appeared in the past.

T. An