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(light rhythmic music)

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- Good afternoon, everyone.

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It gives my great pleasure
to do the formal introduction

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for our guest today, Dr. Daniel Ksepka.

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Dr. Ksepka is the curator
of the Bruce Museum

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in Greenwich, Connecticut.

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He completed his BS at Rutgers University

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and his PhD at Columbia University.

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In addition to his curatorship
at the Bruce Museum,

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he is a research associate

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at the Field Museum of
Natural History in Chicago

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and a research collaborator

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at the Smithsonian
Institution National Museum

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of Natural History.

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To quote one of his webpages,
"Museums are my home."

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He is a paleontologist
who uses fossil data

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to reconstruct the timing
of modern bird evolution,

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allowing him to understand
how events like extinctions,

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climate change, and plate tectonic events

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influence avian evolution.

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He has just published a review
of dinosaur nesting ecology

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in the American Scientist that I shared

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with the faculty list this morning.

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I couldn't put it on the student
list 'cause it was too big.

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If you're interested in it,

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just email me and I'll
pass it along to you.

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Without further ado, we welcome Dr. Kspeka

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as he delivers his talk entitled,

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"Penguins, Past and Present."

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- All right, it's penguin time.

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I'm gonna press share.

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Are we good on AV?

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All right.

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Yes? Okay.

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Well thanks for coming out today

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and thanks for inviting me here.

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I am going to talk about the evolution

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of my favorite group
of birds, the penguins.

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And I'm gonna cover a lot of discoveries

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that have taken place in New Zealand.

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I really wanted to focus on that

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because that's where a lot of the news

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and study of ancient penguins
is happening these days.

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Don't seem to-

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Oh, there we go.

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So, I'll just introduce myself briefly.

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I'm a curator at the Bruce Museum.

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This is a picture that
we're all very proud of

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because this is our new wing.

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It hasn't actually opened yet.

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It will be opening this spring,

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but we've been working on it
for the last about three years

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and planning it for about
the last seven years.

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And this is going to double our size

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and add a lot of new amenities
like our new auditorium

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and gift shop and restaurant.

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So we're super happy.

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And when I got hired at
the Bruce Museum in 2014,

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they said, what will
your first exhibit be?

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And I said, penguins.

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And they said, that sounds great,

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but we're gonna save it for the new wing,

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which we'll be opening in 2018.

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Well, here it's 2023 and
we're actually finally going

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to get to put that show on.

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So I've had a long time
to to think about this

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and this is how we've been working.

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These are some of my new friends.

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We've been acquiring penguins
from zoos and aquariums

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when they die of natural causes

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and we've been bringing them
back to life as taxidermy.

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We've also been collecting fossils.

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We've been doing 3D scans so
we can make replicas of fossils

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in other countries.

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We have two penguin
mummies, believe it or not,

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and videos even of robotic penguins

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that can swim underwater
autonomously or fly through the air

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because they're filled
with some type of gas.

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So this is my son, Michael.

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I spoke here in 2017, and
that was quite some time ago.

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And he was a little tiny baby

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and this was his very first
out-of-state road trip.

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And so this is a really
great memory for me

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and it's wonderful to be back,

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and I just wanted to say a
lot has changed since then.

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He's in kindergarten now and
he has a three-year-old sister.

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And so maybe that's an awkward segue

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or a quick way to cram my kids in,

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but a lot has changed in
the world of penguins too.

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So this talk is gonna
have a little introduction

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that's similar to last time,

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but most of it's going to
be discoveries that happened

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since that first talk.

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So I always like to begin
with an introduction

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to living penguins before
working into the fossils.

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And I'm interested in how
many species of penguins

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do you all think there are today?

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Anyone want to shout out a guess?

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A hundred or 13?

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Anyone in between that?

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(Daniel chuckles)

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Lower, higher?

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Who thinks more than 13,
who thinks less than 13?

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More?

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Less?

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Wow, you guys are smart.

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All right, so there's
about 20 living species

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of penguins today.

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These are beautiful
photographs by Tuey Delroy.

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She's a nature photographer
who's worked with us

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for this exhibition.

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So a lot of her work will be on the walls

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as exhibit graphics.

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And these are the 20
living species of penguins

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that we have today.

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I say about 20 because there's
a little bit of debate.

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We actually recently
sequenced the complete genomes

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of all penguins.

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And that's another amazing thing to me.

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Back when little Michael
came up here in 2017,

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I would not think we'd have the bandwidth

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or the money to sequence complete genomes

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of all the penguin species.

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But now we have them.

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We actually just published them last year.

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And there's a little bit of debate.

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For example, the Royal
Penguin is the one shown

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with the white chin.

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The Macaroni is the penguin
in the lower left-hand corner.

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They look very different,

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but if you look at their DNA,

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it's clear that they're exchanging DNA,

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there's interbreeding going on.

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And so a lot of the scientists
don't consider these

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to be two separate species,

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but rather just populations
with that variance in plumage.

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On the other side of the same coin,

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these cute little guys,

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these are the tiniest
penguins alive today,

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they're about a foot tall
and weigh two pounds.

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The Australian Little Penguin

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and the New Zealand Little Penguin.

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They look identical.

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You can't tell them apart
from them walking around.

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You can't tell them apart
from their skeleton.

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But when you look at their genes,

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they've been separated
for about a million years,

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and they're obviously separated
by a very wide distance.

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And so they're probably
a very good species

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split genetically, but
a very difficult one

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to make in the field if you
just saw them walking by,

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you'd have no idea which
one you were seeing.

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So these penguins are distributed

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throughout the entire southern hemisphere.

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We tend to imagine penguins
in icy Antarctic environments,

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but they actually live
pretty much anywhere

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they can come ashore without
worrying about predators.

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They live on these
rocky Antarctic islands,

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they live in coastal forests,

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and some cases, they even breed in desert.

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So the penguin in the lower right

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is actually shielding
its eggs from the sun

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rather than worrying
about keeping them warm.

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And they come in all
different shapes and sizes.

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This is the largest living
penguin, an Emperor Penguin,

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stands about as tall as my three year old.

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It's about three feet even

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and that's the biggest one we have today.

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And the smallest penguin
is the Little Blue Penguin.

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And this is the only video with sound

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so I'm gonna hope this works.

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But this is Cookie, the
Little Penguin being tickled.

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(penguin squealing)

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Well, you can still enjoy it.

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(penguin continues squealing)

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It is laughing I assure you.

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(Daniel chuckles)
(penguin continues squealing)

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So that was only one species of penguin

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when I give this talk last.

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Now we tend to split them

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into the Australian and
New Zealand species.

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And again, about a foot
tall, about two pounds.

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So I broke this talk into
five or six little segments

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and the first one is called
"Why Study Penguins."

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So why might you study penguins?

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Maybe they're really cute,
they're really funny.

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You want to go to all these exotic places.

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They're kind of human-like
in the way they walk.

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They're amusing, they're popular.

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But for me, the reason I took up penguins

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as the topic of my graduate dissertation

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was they represent a really great example

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of an evolutionary transition.

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So the closest living
relatives of penguins

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are petrols and albatrosses.

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And to get from that point to a penguin

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takes about 65 million years

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and there's just so much going on.

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So they're returning to the
water to the greatest extent

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than any group of birds ever has done.

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It's as interesting as when
hoofed mammals becoming whales

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or dinosaurs becoming birds.

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You've got the loss of flight,

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you've got these ridiculous
legs, this waddling gait,

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the feathers are completely reorganized,

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the way they reproduce is
very unique in the bird world.

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And so figuring out how that happened

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gives you a great chance
to combine observations

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from living penguins and
from the fossil record.

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This is a wing of a petrol
on top and penguin below

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and you can see how
radically different they are.

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The bones look like they've
kind of been run over

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by a steamroller.

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They're very widened,
they're very flattened.

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That makes them very stiff and very good

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at being a flipper basically.

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And so they can't fold their wings,

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their wings are very short
compared to their body,

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but that's perfect when
you're propelling yourself

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through this very dense
medium of the water

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rather than through the air.

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If you look inside the bones,
they're incredibly dense.

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On the left here is a
pelican femur or thighbone.

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On the right we have a penguin,

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as you can see how thick that cortex is.

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There's almost no marrow
cavity at all left.

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That helps 'em achieve negative buoyancy

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and sink into the water
column more efficiently.

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The feathers are almost comically small.

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So here's a cormorant feather on the left

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and penguin feather on the right

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from the same part of the body.

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They've shrunk to just a
centimeter or two in length.

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They're flattened, they're scale-like,

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very, very good at keeping them warm.

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They have hundreds of
feathers per square inch,

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but not good at all for flying.

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But that doesn't matter
since they don't fly anymore.

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And so, like I said,

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we actually sequenced the whole genomes

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of all the penguins last year.

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We published this in I think
Nature Communications in 2022.

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And you see changes in
the genome of penguins

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in almost every functional category.

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So in taste and diet,

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in the way their myoglobin stores oxygen,

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in their vision and thermal regulation,

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even in immunity to
parasites and diseases.

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So we have a lot of interesting
things that we detected

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from the genomic data that
we might not actually be able

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to pick up on by just
looking at the penguin.

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We see that they've lost the genes

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that help them make
functional green cone cells

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in their eyes.

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And that means they're
shifting their vision

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towards the blue end of the spectrum.

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So they're more efficient at seeing

258
00:10:25,288 --> 00:10:28,410
in the blue part of the
visible light wavelength

259
00:10:28,410 --> 00:10:29,243
and the red part.

260
00:10:29,243 --> 00:10:31,440
And that makes sense because
the deeper you go on the water,

261
00:10:31,440 --> 00:10:33,810
the less red light tends to penetrate.

262
00:10:33,810 --> 00:10:36,480
And so once you get down,
be like 50 feet or so,

263
00:10:36,480 --> 00:10:37,731
all that's filtering out.

264
00:10:37,731 --> 00:10:40,380
But the blue light can
penetrate much further

265
00:10:40,380 --> 00:10:41,213
in the water column

266
00:10:41,213 --> 00:10:44,430
and that helps the penguins
to detect their prey,

267
00:10:44,430 --> 00:10:46,740
watch out for predators, things like that.

268
00:10:46,740 --> 00:10:48,780
My favorite thing we found
out from the genomes though

269
00:10:48,780 --> 00:10:51,030
was they've lost a lot of senses of taste.

270
00:10:51,030 --> 00:10:54,240
So this is a Deli Penguin
sticking its tongue out,

271
00:10:54,240 --> 00:10:55,800
and you can see their tongues
here kind of frightening.

272
00:10:55,800 --> 00:10:57,420
They look almost alien.

273
00:10:57,420 --> 00:10:59,370
And what you're seeing
there is this series

274
00:10:59,370 --> 00:11:01,140
of keratinous spikes.

275
00:11:01,140 --> 00:11:03,660
They basically are little
backwards projections

276
00:11:03,660 --> 00:11:05,040
that help them hold prey in.

277
00:11:05,040 --> 00:11:06,120
There's counterpart projections

278
00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:07,440
on the roof of the mouth as well,

279
00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:09,870
and so these animals can
really hold onto something

280
00:11:09,870 --> 00:11:10,851
once they grab them.

281
00:11:10,851 --> 00:11:12,888
So the tongues aren't soft like ours,

282
00:11:12,888 --> 00:11:17,000
they're kind of creepy,
and they've lost many...

283
00:11:18,090 --> 00:11:20,070
They lost the ability to
detect many types of taste.

284
00:11:20,070 --> 00:11:21,187
So here's a little penguin.

285
00:11:21,187 --> 00:11:24,905
When we look at the genome,
you can see in green,

286
00:11:24,905 --> 00:11:29,010
that's species that
have the complete gene.

287
00:11:29,010 --> 00:11:30,357
In yellow are those
that have a pseudo gene.

288
00:11:30,357 --> 00:11:33,060
And in gray are those of
the genes not found at all.

289
00:11:33,060 --> 00:11:35,640
And so penguins have basically
shut down a lot of taste.

290
00:11:35,640 --> 00:11:38,531
They don't have the ability
to taste sweet at all.

291
00:11:38,531 --> 00:11:40,620
That's actually not that unique.

292
00:11:40,620 --> 00:11:43,050
Almost no birds can actually detect sweet.

293
00:11:43,050 --> 00:11:44,910
A few exceptions include
things like hummingbirds

294
00:11:44,910 --> 00:11:47,370
that actually feed on nectar.

295
00:11:47,370 --> 00:11:51,030
They can't detect umami, that's
kind of the savory taste,

296
00:11:51,030 --> 00:11:52,830
so they wouldn't taste
that delicious steak.

297
00:11:52,830 --> 00:11:54,210
And they can't taste bitter.

298
00:11:54,210 --> 00:11:55,860
I used Brussels sprouts as an example,

299
00:11:55,860 --> 00:11:57,600
I couldn't really think of anything else.

300
00:11:57,600 --> 00:12:00,600
So they're only able to
detect sour and salty taste.

301
00:12:00,600 --> 00:12:01,590
And this is something that's cool

302
00:12:01,590 --> 00:12:04,950
'cause you might not be
able to test this very well

303
00:12:04,950 --> 00:12:05,790
with living penguins.

304
00:12:05,790 --> 00:12:07,680
You can't really say, did
you like those gummy bears?

305
00:12:07,680 --> 00:12:08,790
Yes or no?

306
00:12:08,790 --> 00:12:10,110
How are those chips?

307
00:12:10,110 --> 00:12:12,420
But you can see that these
genes don't function,

308
00:12:12,420 --> 00:12:14,590
so they should not be
able to detect those.

309
00:12:14,590 --> 00:12:17,011
And this is probably
related to being aquatic.

310
00:12:17,011 --> 00:12:18,630
They're feeding underwater.

311
00:12:18,630 --> 00:12:19,463
Yes?

312
00:12:20,654 --> 00:12:21,573
Oh.

313
00:12:23,910 --> 00:12:25,860
Oh now we gotta watch your
gummy bears disappear again.

314
00:12:25,860 --> 00:12:28,440
Sorry.
(Daniel chuckles)

315
00:12:28,440 --> 00:12:31,650
So when you're aquatic and
you're eating underwater,

316
00:12:31,650 --> 00:12:34,110
you're probably just
swallowing your food whole.

317
00:12:34,110 --> 00:12:36,090
So these tastes are not as important.

318
00:12:36,090 --> 00:12:37,950
You don't need to know if a fruit is ripe

319
00:12:37,950 --> 00:12:42,072
or if some carrion you're
eating is too spoiled or not.

320
00:12:42,072 --> 00:12:44,400
And your taste sense of smell

321
00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:45,750
is also getting a little bit overwhelmed

322
00:12:45,750 --> 00:12:46,830
by the cold, salty water.

323
00:12:46,830 --> 00:12:48,130
So it kind of makes sense.

324
00:12:49,350 --> 00:12:50,183
Part two of the talk,

325
00:12:50,183 --> 00:12:51,960
I'm gonna move on to the
fossil record of penguins,

326
00:12:51,960 --> 00:12:53,040
and that's my main focus.

327
00:12:53,040 --> 00:12:53,970
I'm a paleontologist,

328
00:12:53,970 --> 00:12:55,800
so I was a co-author on the genome paper,

329
00:12:55,800 --> 00:12:58,110
but I was mostly providing some advice

330
00:12:58,110 --> 00:13:00,493
about how to interpret these
in the sense of deep time.

331
00:13:00,493 --> 00:13:02,430
If you let me in the lab with a pipette,

332
00:13:02,430 --> 00:13:03,930
I'd probably stab myself in the eye

333
00:13:03,930 --> 00:13:06,360
and contaminate all the data.

334
00:13:06,360 --> 00:13:08,430
But this is where where
I do feel comfortable.

335
00:13:08,430 --> 00:13:10,920
The fossil record of
penguins is excellent.

336
00:13:10,920 --> 00:13:13,650
There are 60 species of
fossil penguins known,

337
00:13:13,650 --> 00:13:16,253
actually more than 60, 'cause
we just named two last week.

338
00:13:16,253 --> 00:13:18,990
That's more than three times the amount

339
00:13:18,990 --> 00:13:19,823
that are alive today.

340
00:13:19,823 --> 00:13:21,780
So they're very diverse.

341
00:13:21,780 --> 00:13:23,640
There are thousands of individual fossils

342
00:13:23,640 --> 00:13:26,126
ranging from single bones
to complete skeletons.

343
00:13:26,126 --> 00:13:28,860
And the reason we have
such a great fossil record

344
00:13:28,860 --> 00:13:31,466
is they have those dense
bones we just talked about

345
00:13:31,466 --> 00:13:33,240
and they're living in marine environments.

346
00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:35,520
So a penguin dies, it
can sink to the bottom

347
00:13:35,520 --> 00:13:38,530
and cover with sand or silt
and be preserved as a fossil.

348
00:13:38,530 --> 00:13:40,470
If a little bird dies in the woods,

349
00:13:40,470 --> 00:13:43,080
it's probably just gonna
get scavenged or wash away

350
00:13:43,080 --> 00:13:46,470
or something like that and
not make it into the record.

351
00:13:46,470 --> 00:13:49,680
So the story of penguins begins
about 60 million years ago,

352
00:13:49,680 --> 00:13:52,110
and it begins in New Zealand.

353
00:13:52,110 --> 00:13:54,900
And it begins in New Zealand
in two different ways,

354
00:13:54,900 --> 00:13:57,213
one geologically and one historically.

355
00:13:58,380 --> 00:14:01,171
Historically we have a nice
little tie into Darwin week.

356
00:14:01,171 --> 00:14:05,670
So in 1859, about 160 years ago,

357
00:14:05,670 --> 00:14:07,920
the first fossil penguin ever described

358
00:14:07,920 --> 00:14:11,310
was written up by none other
than Thomas Henry Huxley,

359
00:14:11,310 --> 00:14:14,070
also known as Darwin's bulldog

360
00:14:14,070 --> 00:14:16,254
for his defense of the theory of evolution

361
00:14:16,254 --> 00:14:18,900
back when it was still in its infancy.

362
00:14:18,900 --> 00:14:20,100
He was a very good anatomist,

363
00:14:20,100 --> 00:14:21,960
he did a lot of work
on dinosaurs and birds,

364
00:14:21,960 --> 00:14:24,210
and he described this
bone, not super exciting,

365
00:14:24,210 --> 00:14:27,240
but this is an ankle bone from a penguin.

366
00:14:27,240 --> 00:14:28,290
And when Huxley saw this,

367
00:14:28,290 --> 00:14:30,690
he instantly knew it belonged to a penguin

368
00:14:30,690 --> 00:14:32,100
because it's so unique.

369
00:14:32,100 --> 00:14:34,920
These birds have such short little feet,

370
00:14:34,920 --> 00:14:38,010
this looks nothing like the
same bone in any other bird

371
00:14:38,010 --> 00:14:39,369
that's alive today.

372
00:14:39,369 --> 00:14:41,430
And so Huxley said, this is a penguin,

373
00:14:41,430 --> 00:14:43,080
it must mean two things.

374
00:14:43,080 --> 00:14:44,340
One, penguins once got bigger

375
00:14:44,340 --> 00:14:45,540
'cause this bird's a little bit bigger

376
00:14:45,540 --> 00:14:46,380
than an Emperor Penguin,

377
00:14:46,380 --> 00:14:49,050
and two, penguins are
much older than we thought

378
00:14:49,050 --> 00:14:51,720
because this bone's about
25 million years in age.

379
00:14:51,720 --> 00:14:53,374
So it was a very important first step

380
00:14:53,374 --> 00:14:55,920
towards understanding penguins.

381
00:14:55,920 --> 00:14:58,080
Since that time, hundreds
of fossil discoveries

382
00:14:58,080 --> 00:14:59,310
have been made in New Zealand,

383
00:14:59,310 --> 00:15:00,810
including the oldest known penguin.

384
00:15:00,810 --> 00:15:02,250
This is Waimanu.

385
00:15:02,250 --> 00:15:04,020
It is a beautiful bird.

386
00:15:04,020 --> 00:15:05,970
It comes from the south
island of New Zealand,

387
00:15:05,970 --> 00:15:09,150
and it's about 61 and a
half million years in age.

388
00:15:09,150 --> 00:15:11,417
So it's a very primitive penguin,
the most primitive known.

389
00:15:11,417 --> 00:15:14,400
It has a more slender
foot than modern species,

390
00:15:14,400 --> 00:15:18,420
it can fold its wings, it had
a longer more spear-like beak.

391
00:15:18,420 --> 00:15:21,900
And so it would've been
flightless for sure,

392
00:15:21,900 --> 00:15:24,780
but quite primitive compared
to any living penguin.

393
00:15:24,780 --> 00:15:26,520
And to put the age in
context, here we are,

394
00:15:26,520 --> 00:15:29,010
Waimanu is about 61 and a half million.

395
00:15:29,010 --> 00:15:32,520
The asteroid impact that
wipes out the dinosaurs is 66.

396
00:15:32,520 --> 00:15:35,250
And the oldest fossils
that are closer to humans

397
00:15:35,250 --> 00:15:37,860
than to chimps are about
seven or eight million years.

398
00:15:37,860 --> 00:15:41,130
So we can say penguins
are almost 10 times older

399
00:15:41,130 --> 00:15:41,963
than human beings.

400
00:15:41,963 --> 00:15:44,850
That's really pretty cool
how long they've been around

401
00:15:44,850 --> 00:15:47,970
and how soon they evolved
after that great extinction

402
00:15:47,970 --> 00:15:49,770
at the end of the Cretaceous Period.

403
00:15:51,030 --> 00:15:53,184
So now I'll talk a little bit
about some of the discoveries

404
00:15:53,184 --> 00:15:54,120
that we've made.

405
00:15:54,120 --> 00:15:56,790
I've been to New Zealand four
times to collect penguins

406
00:15:56,790 --> 00:15:58,170
and to study penguins at museums.

407
00:15:58,170 --> 00:15:59,580
And that's me on the right

408
00:15:59,580 --> 00:16:01,350
with my good friend
Daniel Thomas on the left.

409
00:16:01,350 --> 00:16:04,140
He's a professor at Massey
University over there.

410
00:16:04,140 --> 00:16:06,120
And we're standing by a big square hole,

411
00:16:06,120 --> 00:16:08,520
and that's where we've cut a
fossil out with a chainsaw.

412
00:16:08,520 --> 00:16:11,580
And so the interesting thing
about many of the fossil sites

413
00:16:11,580 --> 00:16:14,430
in New Zealand is sometimes
you're collecting in cliffs.

414
00:16:14,430 --> 00:16:15,960
You tend to think of fossils

415
00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:18,300
as you're digging a pit in
the ground or something.

416
00:16:18,300 --> 00:16:20,130
Here we're walking
along these cliff sides,

417
00:16:20,130 --> 00:16:21,780
this very soft rock,

418
00:16:21,780 --> 00:16:24,330
and sometimes we see something like this.

419
00:16:24,330 --> 00:16:26,310
That red cross section you're seeing

420
00:16:26,310 --> 00:16:29,460
is actually a flipper
bone from a large penguin,

421
00:16:29,460 --> 00:16:31,260
and it's sticking out of that rock

422
00:16:31,260 --> 00:16:32,970
where the river's eroded through it,

423
00:16:32,970 --> 00:16:34,380
and it's starting to kind of turn red.

424
00:16:34,380 --> 00:16:36,270
It's almost rusting in place.

425
00:16:36,270 --> 00:16:38,405
And so when we see something like this,

426
00:16:38,405 --> 00:16:41,520
we hope there's more behind it
and we end up collecting it.

427
00:16:41,520 --> 00:16:45,030
So it's like not very
Indiana Jones-like uniform

428
00:16:45,030 --> 00:16:47,226
because we're basically
using little pneumatic tools

429
00:16:47,226 --> 00:16:49,710
to chip away at the rock here.

430
00:16:49,710 --> 00:16:51,990
And you can see we're excavating around

431
00:16:51,990 --> 00:16:53,040
where that bone was sticking out.

432
00:16:53,040 --> 00:16:54,900
This turned out to be a pretty good fossil

433
00:16:54,900 --> 00:16:57,240
of a penguin called Kairuku

434
00:16:57,240 --> 00:16:59,010
that we were able to eventually take back

435
00:16:59,010 --> 00:17:01,413
to the lab at Otago University.

436
00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:04,320
Here's a flipper of that species.

437
00:17:04,320 --> 00:17:06,930
This is a Gigantic Penguin.

438
00:17:06,930 --> 00:17:08,880
It lived back in the Oligocene Period

439
00:17:08,880 --> 00:17:10,770
about 27 million years ago.

440
00:17:10,770 --> 00:17:12,900
For scale, the the smaller white bones

441
00:17:12,900 --> 00:17:14,067
are those of a Yellow Eye Penguin,

442
00:17:14,067 --> 00:17:17,220
the species that lives
in the same area today.

443
00:17:17,220 --> 00:17:20,190
And this is my colleague
and mentor, Ewen Fordyce,

444
00:17:20,190 --> 00:17:21,870
he'll come up again later in the story,

445
00:17:21,870 --> 00:17:24,780
but here he's putting together
a nearly complete skeleton

446
00:17:24,780 --> 00:17:25,800
of Kairuku.

447
00:17:25,800 --> 00:17:28,110
And again on the left, a
little artist reconstruction

448
00:17:28,110 --> 00:17:32,460
of that bird with a modern
Yellow Eye Penguin for scale.

449
00:17:32,460 --> 00:17:34,320
So this was a very important find.

450
00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:37,740
Ewen collected these
fossils quite some time ago

451
00:17:37,740 --> 00:17:40,410
and invited me to study them in 2012.

452
00:17:40,410 --> 00:17:42,300
We've collected more together since,

453
00:17:42,300 --> 00:17:45,030
and for a long time we didn't know

454
00:17:45,030 --> 00:17:46,470
how big these fossil penguins were

455
00:17:46,470 --> 00:17:49,080
'cause someone would find one
foot bone and they say, oh,

456
00:17:49,080 --> 00:17:51,030
it's twice as big as an Emperor Penguin,

457
00:17:51,030 --> 00:17:52,830
and Wikipedia says an Emperor Penguin's

458
00:17:52,830 --> 00:17:54,270
four and a half feet tall,

459
00:17:54,270 --> 00:17:55,620
even though it's really closer to three,

460
00:17:55,620 --> 00:17:58,110
so this must have been like
an eight foot tall penguin.

461
00:17:58,110 --> 00:17:59,850
And they would've all these ridiculous

462
00:17:59,850 --> 00:18:01,620
Frankenstein-looking birds

463
00:18:01,620 --> 00:18:03,390
because they were relying
on the proportions

464
00:18:03,390 --> 00:18:04,223
in living species.

465
00:18:04,223 --> 00:18:06,990
But it turns out Kairuku's quite different

466
00:18:06,990 --> 00:18:08,010
than anything around today.

467
00:18:08,010 --> 00:18:10,500
So this is a little model of the skeleton

468
00:18:10,500 --> 00:18:11,910
that Daniel Thomas put together.

469
00:18:11,910 --> 00:18:14,490
We basically surface
scanned all of the bones

470
00:18:14,490 --> 00:18:17,400
and digitally put them back
how they would've been in life.

471
00:18:17,400 --> 00:18:20,610
And we figured out this animal
stood about four foot three

472
00:18:20,610 --> 00:18:25,610
and it had a very
different kind of profile

473
00:18:25,980 --> 00:18:27,285
than a modern penguin.

474
00:18:27,285 --> 00:18:28,381
It's much thinner.

475
00:18:28,381 --> 00:18:29,386
It's like almost like

476
00:18:29,386 --> 00:18:30,960
if you took a bowling pin
shaped regular penguin

477
00:18:30,960 --> 00:18:32,280
and stretched it out a little bit.

478
00:18:32,280 --> 00:18:34,830
The sternum or breast
bones are much longer,

479
00:18:34,830 --> 00:18:36,090
the legs are very strongly built,

480
00:18:36,090 --> 00:18:38,550
the flipper is much more elongated,

481
00:18:38,550 --> 00:18:40,740
and the neck and the beak are as well.

482
00:18:40,740 --> 00:18:43,110
So it would've been a
more graceful animal.

483
00:18:43,110 --> 00:18:46,185
This is a wonderful reconstruction
of it by Chris Gaskin,

484
00:18:46,185 --> 00:18:49,470
which hangs in the Geology
Museum at the University.

485
00:18:49,470 --> 00:18:52,980
So they would be very
beautiful birds, I think.

486
00:18:52,980 --> 00:18:56,790
We were very proud to be able
to put this back together

487
00:18:56,790 --> 00:18:59,100
and get, I think, the
first reasonable idea

488
00:18:59,100 --> 00:19:00,900
of the proportions of this penguin.

489
00:19:00,900 --> 00:19:01,733
So it was huge.

490
00:19:01,733 --> 00:19:03,330
Four foot two is pretty big.

491
00:19:03,330 --> 00:19:05,920
But then we came upon
something even bigger

492
00:19:05,920 --> 00:19:07,470
and I'll talk about that one second.

493
00:19:07,470 --> 00:19:09,690
I just wanted to put this
coin, and this is kind of fun.

494
00:19:09,690 --> 00:19:10,920
A few years after we found that,

495
00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:12,840
they actually made it into
a real coin in New Zealand.

496
00:19:12,840 --> 00:19:16,260
So this is $5 silver
coin with Kairuku on it.

497
00:19:16,260 --> 00:19:17,677
The name Kairuku basically means

498
00:19:17,677 --> 00:19:19,500
"diver who returns with food."

499
00:19:19,500 --> 00:19:21,480
And that's based on the Maori language,

500
00:19:21,480 --> 00:19:24,450
the first people to set
up shop in New Zealand

501
00:19:24,450 --> 00:19:26,523
about 1300 AD or so.

502
00:19:28,980 --> 00:19:33,300
So in 2017, about the time
I was standing here actually

503
00:19:33,300 --> 00:19:34,140
for my first talk,

504
00:19:34,140 --> 00:19:37,230
my friend Alan Tendenson,
he's a curator at Te Papa,

505
00:19:37,230 --> 00:19:40,350
the National Museum of New
Zealand, found this on the beach.

506
00:19:40,350 --> 00:19:42,390
So he was out looking
at these concretions,

507
00:19:42,390 --> 00:19:46,020
these rocks that sometimes
have bones in them,

508
00:19:46,020 --> 00:19:47,730
and they're just eroding out at the beach.

509
00:19:47,730 --> 00:19:50,826
And so they may be naturally
broken by wave action.

510
00:19:50,826 --> 00:19:52,440
And if you can get to them in time,

511
00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:53,580
you might discover something.

512
00:19:53,580 --> 00:19:54,540
If you leave them there,

513
00:19:54,540 --> 00:19:58,140
eventually they'll just
be destroyed by the ocean.

514
00:19:58,140 --> 00:19:59,820
And this was a real interesting find

515
00:19:59,820 --> 00:20:01,710
because bird bones are pretty rare.

516
00:20:01,710 --> 00:20:02,580
And he said, well my goodness,

517
00:20:02,580 --> 00:20:05,100
this is a bird but the bones are so thick,

518
00:20:05,100 --> 00:20:06,690
it has to be a penguin.

519
00:20:06,690 --> 00:20:09,480
And it's also a little
bit ridiculously large.

520
00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:11,904
And so this is what he found.

521
00:20:11,904 --> 00:20:13,740
That's the humerus of this bird

522
00:20:13,740 --> 00:20:15,330
next to an Emperor Penguin humerus.

523
00:20:15,330 --> 00:20:17,910
It's called Kumimanu fordycei.

524
00:20:17,910 --> 00:20:20,130
I'll talk a little bit about
the name in a couple slides,

525
00:20:20,130 --> 00:20:23,488
but in case this is unclear
'cause of the rock around it,

526
00:20:23,488 --> 00:20:26,970
here is a 3D print of that humerus

527
00:20:26,970 --> 00:20:28,050
next to an Emperor Penguin.

528
00:20:28,050 --> 00:20:29,130
So absolutely massive.

529
00:20:29,130 --> 00:20:31,650
In fact, it's actually the
same length as my humerus.

530
00:20:31,650 --> 00:20:34,650
So my upper arm bone is the
same length as this penguin's.

531
00:20:34,650 --> 00:20:36,600
So it would've been, I mean
imagine flippers like this.

532
00:20:36,600 --> 00:20:39,300
It's fantastically gigantic.

533
00:20:39,300 --> 00:20:42,750
And here's a picture of cutout
we made of it for our museum,

534
00:20:42,750 --> 00:20:44,040
for our penguin exhibition.

535
00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:46,140
So there's an Emperor and a Deli

536
00:20:46,140 --> 00:20:47,740
and a Little Penguin next to it.

537
00:20:48,660 --> 00:20:50,910
Another way you can envision it is size.

538
00:20:50,910 --> 00:20:52,800
So what we did is we wanted to figure out

539
00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:53,700
how big this penguin is.

540
00:20:53,700 --> 00:20:56,760
We didn't have the whole
skeleton like we did for Kairuku.

541
00:20:56,760 --> 00:21:01,260
And so we could get a pretty
ballpark estimate of height

542
00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:03,210
but a much better estimate of body mass

543
00:21:03,210 --> 00:21:07,020
because the humerus scales
very well to body mass.

544
00:21:07,020 --> 00:21:09,090
It needs to propel the
penguin through the water.

545
00:21:09,090 --> 00:21:12,450
So much like the femur or
leg bone supports us on land,

546
00:21:12,450 --> 00:21:14,790
that bone supports penguins
when they're swimming.

547
00:21:14,790 --> 00:21:16,080
And so there's a pretty tight regression.

548
00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:18,030
We ended up measuring a
couple hundred penguin bones

549
00:21:18,030 --> 00:21:21,990
from modern species and we
estimated the mass at 340 pounds,

550
00:21:21,990 --> 00:21:24,300
which is pretty good,
pretty good for a penguin.

551
00:21:24,300 --> 00:21:25,860
The New York Times actually
put out an article,

552
00:21:25,860 --> 00:21:27,930
and they said it's the
size of Lane Johnson,

553
00:21:27,930 --> 00:21:32,310
the poor Eagles, bad call
at the end of the game,

554
00:21:32,310 --> 00:21:35,580
but that's about the
weight of this penguin.

555
00:21:35,580 --> 00:21:36,420
So it would've been huge.

556
00:21:36,420 --> 00:21:38,040
It wouldn't have been as tall,

557
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:39,750
so it would've been better
at the line of scrimmage

558
00:21:39,750 --> 00:21:42,586
'cause it's gonna be lower
down, about five foot three.

559
00:21:42,586 --> 00:21:45,270
If you don't care about
football very much,

560
00:21:45,270 --> 00:21:47,550
I think another good point of comparison

561
00:21:47,550 --> 00:21:50,880
would be about an average size gorilla.

562
00:21:50,880 --> 00:21:53,370
So pretty, pretty huge animal.

563
00:21:53,370 --> 00:21:54,810
And there's a, this is Kairuku.

564
00:21:54,810 --> 00:21:56,970
We didn't do a Kumimanu
'cause it wasn't discovered

565
00:21:56,970 --> 00:21:58,940
when we started the exhibit,
but that's me with Kairuku.

566
00:21:58,940 --> 00:22:00,390
So you can kind of see,

567
00:22:00,390 --> 00:22:02,160
you can imagine how that
penguin could put on the pounds.

568
00:22:02,160 --> 00:22:04,053
They're much more dense than humans.

569
00:22:06,210 --> 00:22:07,950
So that was Kumimanu fordycei.

570
00:22:07,950 --> 00:22:10,560
We published that on Wednesday last week.

571
00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:12,240
So it's cool 'cause I can
actually talk about it.

572
00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:13,568
I wasn't sure I'd be able to mention it

573
00:22:13,568 --> 00:22:15,960
until the paper came out.

574
00:22:15,960 --> 00:22:18,750
But we also had a second
penguin in the same paper.

575
00:22:18,750 --> 00:22:20,220
This is another nodule,

576
00:22:20,220 --> 00:22:22,080
another concretion that
Alan found on the beach.

577
00:22:22,080 --> 00:22:24,600
And this one had a humerus in it.

578
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:26,986
And this ended up being
a second smaller species

579
00:22:26,986 --> 00:22:31,986
of closely related
penguin that we called...

580
00:22:32,160 --> 00:22:32,993
There we go.

581
00:22:33,930 --> 00:22:36,165
This one we named Petradyptes stonehousei.

582
00:22:36,165 --> 00:22:38,464
Petradyptes basically means "rock diver"

583
00:22:38,464 --> 00:22:40,620
'cause it was found in a
rock and it's a diving bird.

584
00:22:40,620 --> 00:22:43,040
And stonehousei is
after Bernard Stonehouse

585
00:22:43,040 --> 00:22:44,970
and I'll talk about
him in just one second.

586
00:22:44,970 --> 00:22:46,020
But we actually ended up

587
00:22:46,020 --> 00:22:48,870
with five different partial
skeletons of this bird.

588
00:22:48,870 --> 00:22:52,020
And so it's a little bit
bigger than an Emperor Penguin.

589
00:22:52,020 --> 00:22:55,530
So not as large as Kumimanu,
but still pretty impressive.

590
00:22:55,530 --> 00:22:58,140
And we know a lot more about
the overall body proportions

591
00:22:58,140 --> 00:23:00,960
because we actually do have the
shoulder blade, the flipper,

592
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:03,300
the legs, the pelvis, the breast bone,

593
00:23:03,300 --> 00:23:05,430
a lot more pieces of this penguin.

594
00:23:05,430 --> 00:23:07,584
This is what they may
have looked like in life.

595
00:23:07,584 --> 00:23:09,930
The Kumimanu is a little
bit more conjectural

596
00:23:09,930 --> 00:23:11,640
because we don't have
as much of the skeleton,

597
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:13,080
we just know it's gigantic.

598
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:15,060
Petradyptes, we're on a
little bit firmer ground

599
00:23:15,060 --> 00:23:17,010
on the proportions of the leg and wing.

600
00:23:17,010 --> 00:23:20,310
And again we always use the
Emperor Penguin for scale.

601
00:23:20,310 --> 00:23:23,040
We think they stood probably
a little bit less upright

602
00:23:23,040 --> 00:23:23,873
than the Emperor,

603
00:23:23,873 --> 00:23:25,290
so you can see 'em
slouching forward a bit,

604
00:23:25,290 --> 00:23:28,530
and they almost certainly
had much longer beaks

605
00:23:28,530 --> 00:23:33,300
based on what other penguins
from that time looked like.

606
00:23:33,300 --> 00:23:35,370
So this is Ewen, and this is one of my,

607
00:23:35,370 --> 00:23:38,070
oh I'm gonna move that green
thing down for you again,

608
00:23:39,041 --> 00:23:40,230
pull that down.

609
00:23:40,230 --> 00:23:43,410
Ewen Fordyce is recently retired professor

610
00:23:43,410 --> 00:23:44,730
at the University of Otago,

611
00:23:44,730 --> 00:23:47,850
and he was a really important
mentor for me personally,

612
00:23:47,850 --> 00:23:50,370
for Daniel Thomas who's
my co-author on this,

613
00:23:50,370 --> 00:23:53,640
and for Simone Giovanardi,
he's Daniel's graduate student.

614
00:23:53,640 --> 00:23:57,690
So it's kind of like having
your kid and grandkid honor you

615
00:23:57,690 --> 00:23:59,819
when we all got together for this paper.

616
00:23:59,819 --> 00:24:01,740
Ewen is a wonderful scientist.

617
00:24:01,740 --> 00:24:03,540
He's published huge amounts of papers,

618
00:24:03,540 --> 00:24:05,520
he's collected amazing fossils,

619
00:24:05,520 --> 00:24:09,180
but he's also a really strong advocate

620
00:24:09,180 --> 00:24:10,110
for scientific outreach.

621
00:24:10,110 --> 00:24:12,720
So he's built museum
collections for exhibits,

622
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,480
he has conducted this lost world trail

623
00:24:15,480 --> 00:24:18,180
where people can drive around
and actually see fossils

624
00:24:18,180 --> 00:24:19,410
in the ground in New Zealand

625
00:24:19,410 --> 00:24:21,450
and teach people how important they are,

626
00:24:21,450 --> 00:24:22,800
what we can learn from them.

627
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,010
And he's been someone
who's always taken the time

628
00:24:26,010 --> 00:24:29,490
to help younger scientists
get their footing

629
00:24:29,490 --> 00:24:30,480
and give them opportunities.

630
00:24:30,480 --> 00:24:33,750
So there's no one better we
can name a penguin after.

631
00:24:33,750 --> 00:24:35,760
Here he is holding a
baby Magellanic Penguin,

632
00:24:35,760 --> 00:24:38,705
which he called the
beautiful beshadded creature.

633
00:24:38,705 --> 00:24:39,570
(Daniel chuckles)

634
00:24:39,570 --> 00:24:41,040
And he's the master storyteller.

635
00:24:41,040 --> 00:24:44,220
He once told a story
of his graduate student

636
00:24:44,220 --> 00:24:46,650
losing to a duck in tic-tac-toe.

637
00:24:46,650 --> 00:24:50,160
And when he tells the story
it takes like 10 minutes.

638
00:24:50,160 --> 00:24:52,560
He says he walks in,
it's the LA County Fair,

639
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:55,003
they've never been to America
before, and his student goes,

640
00:24:55,003 --> 00:24:56,010
"What's this?"

641
00:24:56,010 --> 00:24:58,161
You put a quarter in and a duck walks up

642
00:24:58,161 --> 00:25:01,530
and it taps little thing
and an X lights up.

643
00:25:01,530 --> 00:25:03,030
And he says, "Oh I can beat this duck."

644
00:25:03,030 --> 00:25:04,920
And he puts his O in the square,

645
00:25:04,920 --> 00:25:07,740
the duck looks around a
little bit, taps it beak,

646
00:25:07,740 --> 00:25:08,880
the O lights up again.

647
00:25:08,880 --> 00:25:11,462
He said, "Then Craig started sweating,

648
00:25:11,462 --> 00:25:14,040
there's perspiration on his brow, Daniel."

649
00:25:14,040 --> 00:25:15,570
He blocked the duck

650
00:25:15,570 --> 00:25:18,450
but the duck had two different
opportunities to win.

651
00:25:18,450 --> 00:25:22,350
The duck wins, a little
piece of food falls out,

652
00:25:22,350 --> 00:25:24,090
the duck walks back to the
corner, lights goes off,

653
00:25:24,090 --> 00:25:25,620
then they say, Craig you
gotta give another chance.

654
00:25:25,620 --> 00:25:27,390
Like, oh it was rigged, the
computer's telling the duck

655
00:25:27,390 --> 00:25:28,601
what to do.

656
00:25:28,601 --> 00:25:29,490
He plays the second time.

657
00:25:29,490 --> 00:25:32,820
The duck walks right up, X O X O.

658
00:25:32,820 --> 00:25:34,582
The duck beats him in only three moves.

659
00:25:34,582 --> 00:25:35,490
(Daniel laughs)

660
00:25:35,490 --> 00:25:36,780
Everyone's laughing an uproar,

661
00:25:36,780 --> 00:25:38,843
he's getting mad because back
then a quarter was a dollar

662
00:25:38,843 --> 00:25:40,860
and in New Zealand that was $2.

663
00:25:40,860 --> 00:25:42,401
They finally get him to play again

664
00:25:42,401 --> 00:25:44,130
and the next time he said
he puts the quarter in

665
00:25:44,130 --> 00:25:45,590
and the duck doesn't even
walk up to the point.

666
00:25:45,590 --> 00:25:47,250
It just walks up to its food bowl

667
00:25:47,250 --> 00:25:49,680
because it knows it's gonna win.

668
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:51,510
And I love this story,
I tell this to my kids.

669
00:25:51,510 --> 00:25:54,390
When Ewen tells this,
it takes like 20 minutes

670
00:25:54,390 --> 00:25:56,070
and you finish a pint of beer and

671
00:25:56,070 --> 00:25:58,800
it is, you are laughing so you
need to get your inhaler out.

672
00:25:58,800 --> 00:26:01,200
It is amazing how he's a storyteller.

673
00:26:01,200 --> 00:26:03,750
So for all those reasons we were thrilled

674
00:26:03,750 --> 00:26:04,890
to name the species after him.

675
00:26:04,890 --> 00:26:07,860
It's one of the few wonderful
acts that taxonomists can do

676
00:26:07,860 --> 00:26:09,540
that no one else can do.

677
00:26:09,540 --> 00:26:12,579
The other penguin is named
after Vernon Stonehouse.

678
00:26:12,579 --> 00:26:15,450
This is me with him when I was a postdoc

679
00:26:15,450 --> 00:26:17,400
and this is in 2013.

680
00:26:17,400 --> 00:26:19,680
He is quite a legendary guy.

681
00:26:19,680 --> 00:26:22,500
And again, someone who,
despite being kind of famous

682
00:26:22,500 --> 00:26:23,970
and well-known and popular,

683
00:26:23,970 --> 00:26:25,920
always will take time
to come up to a student,

684
00:26:25,920 --> 00:26:28,227
look at their poster, talk to them,

685
00:26:28,227 --> 00:26:30,321
and give them some advice and all of that.

686
00:26:30,321 --> 00:26:32,310
I met him this year.

687
00:26:32,310 --> 00:26:34,440
He actually died in 2014

688
00:26:34,440 --> 00:26:36,390
so I only knew him for a couple months,

689
00:26:36,390 --> 00:26:39,030
and we had corresponded about some ideas

690
00:26:39,030 --> 00:26:39,960
about a penguin paper

691
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:43,260
and unfortunately I didn't know
how little time he had left.

692
00:26:43,260 --> 00:26:44,580
He was in very good health when I met him,

693
00:26:44,580 --> 00:26:47,610
but I guess you never know
how much time you have.

694
00:26:47,610 --> 00:26:50,760
So we were happy to name
Petradyptes after him.

695
00:26:50,760 --> 00:26:52,560
This is a picture of
him when he was younger,

696
00:26:52,560 --> 00:26:56,040
and his claim to fame is in 1948,

697
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:58,080
he was an ex Royal Air Force pilot.

698
00:26:58,080 --> 00:27:00,300
He went to Antarctica,
they were on an expedition,

699
00:27:00,300 --> 00:27:02,580
11 people, and they got trapped.

700
00:27:02,580 --> 00:27:05,142
And so they were supposed
to get picked up by a boat

701
00:27:05,142 --> 00:27:07,020
and there was too much
pack ice and they're like,

702
00:27:07,020 --> 00:27:09,420
well we're just gonna have to
leave you here for the winter.

703
00:27:09,420 --> 00:27:11,280
So they were just stuck
there in Antarctica,

704
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:13,505
negative 40 degrees, living in tents.

705
00:27:13,505 --> 00:27:16,890
I mean look, if it's
like below 10 degrees,

706
00:27:16,890 --> 00:27:18,090
I can't go out to my car.

707
00:27:18,090 --> 00:27:19,505
I just stay home from work.

708
00:27:19,505 --> 00:27:21,450
He lived there the whole winter

709
00:27:21,450 --> 00:27:23,430
and instead of just hanging
on for a dear life, he's like,

710
00:27:23,430 --> 00:27:25,287
I'll just observe the life
cycle of the Emperor Penguins.

711
00:27:25,287 --> 00:27:26,670
And we take this for granted.

712
00:27:26,670 --> 00:27:29,400
It's like in Happy Feet,
in March of the Emperors,

713
00:27:29,400 --> 00:27:30,233
it's in commercials.

714
00:27:30,233 --> 00:27:31,066
But at that time,

715
00:27:31,066 --> 00:27:34,050
no human being had ever
watched the whole cycle

716
00:27:34,050 --> 00:27:36,090
where they lay the egg
and the male takes the egg

717
00:27:36,090 --> 00:27:37,681
while the female goes out to feed.

718
00:27:37,681 --> 00:27:39,570
She comes back weeks later,

719
00:27:39,570 --> 00:27:40,950
the male gives the chick to the female,

720
00:27:40,950 --> 00:27:42,600
he goes to feed, et cetera.

721
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,220
No one had ever seen that whole cycle.

722
00:27:44,220 --> 00:27:45,480
So he's the first person to do it.

723
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:48,540
What an amazing way to
make lemonade out of lemons

724
00:27:48,540 --> 00:27:50,100
when you're trapped in Antarctica.

725
00:27:50,100 --> 00:27:51,930
And he did many, many
other projects since then.

726
00:27:51,930 --> 00:27:54,450
But that's the namesake for Petradyptes,

727
00:27:54,450 --> 00:27:57,300
which is an Emperor-sized
penguin, so a good one.

728
00:27:57,300 --> 00:28:00,090
So I'm moving on to the
fourth of the five pieces.

729
00:28:00,090 --> 00:28:01,680
This is called the
Escape from New Zealand.

730
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:03,780
This is how penguin's
first left New Zealand

731
00:28:03,780 --> 00:28:05,820
because all of the oldest penguins,

732
00:28:05,820 --> 00:28:08,100
all of the most primitive
penguins are found in New Zealand.

733
00:28:08,100 --> 00:28:10,500
So we have a pretty high
degree of confidence

734
00:28:10,500 --> 00:28:11,520
that's where they originated,

735
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,800
that's where they first evolved.

736
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:14,940
And Daniel and I were interested

737
00:28:14,940 --> 00:28:18,210
in what let them cross the
oceans to a new continent

738
00:28:18,210 --> 00:28:19,043
for the first time.

739
00:28:19,043 --> 00:28:21,390
And we got this idea while
we were chopping up penguins

740
00:28:21,390 --> 00:28:22,530
'cause when we were students,

741
00:28:22,530 --> 00:28:24,600
we would dissect every penguin
we could get our hands on.

742
00:28:24,600 --> 00:28:26,160
I was often in the basement

743
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,465
of the American Museum of
Natural History late at night

744
00:28:28,465 --> 00:28:30,750
and one time a security
guard shown a flashlight

745
00:28:30,750 --> 00:28:32,490
and I was in this creepy
room with the scalpel

746
00:28:32,490 --> 00:28:34,410
and I looked up covered in penguin blood

747
00:28:34,410 --> 00:28:37,650
and the guy just said
eh, and he kept on going.

748
00:28:37,650 --> 00:28:39,000
But this is what I was doing,

749
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:40,830
we're dissecting the wing here,

750
00:28:40,830 --> 00:28:44,130
and that line is pointing
to the arterial plexus.

751
00:28:44,130 --> 00:28:47,040
This is a band of
arteries wrapped in veins

752
00:28:47,040 --> 00:28:48,720
and it's a countercurrent heat exchanger.

753
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:50,820
It's a pretty common concept.

754
00:28:50,820 --> 00:28:52,680
You've got the hot blood
leaving the body core

755
00:28:52,680 --> 00:28:53,850
out to the flipper,

756
00:28:53,850 --> 00:28:56,220
but that flipper is a terrible
thing for shedding heat.

757
00:28:56,220 --> 00:28:58,320
It's very high surface
area, it's a volume,

758
00:28:58,320 --> 00:29:00,450
and so it's like an elephant's ear.

759
00:29:00,450 --> 00:29:03,000
It will waste all your
body heat if you let it.

760
00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:06,486
So the blood coming through
the veins back to the body core

761
00:29:06,486 --> 00:29:08,700
cools that blood down before it gets out,

762
00:29:08,700 --> 00:29:11,130
and likewise, that cool
blood returning to the heart

763
00:29:11,130 --> 00:29:13,830
is heated up by the blood near the armpit.

764
00:29:13,830 --> 00:29:14,880
This is so efficient

765
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:16,710
that people have measured the temperature

766
00:29:16,710 --> 00:29:20,700
at a penguin's wingtip
and it's internally close

767
00:29:20,700 --> 00:29:22,050
to the heart in the muscle tissue,

768
00:29:22,050 --> 00:29:23,790
it can be a hundred degrees
Fahrenheit different.

769
00:29:23,790 --> 00:29:25,803
So it's a very, very efficient system.

770
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:27,990
So we wanted to figure out,

771
00:29:27,990 --> 00:29:29,820
could you track this
into the fossil record,

772
00:29:29,820 --> 00:29:31,170
because again, we're paleontologists,

773
00:29:31,170 --> 00:29:33,930
and so there's a system called
osteological correlates.

774
00:29:33,930 --> 00:29:35,100
There's three types of them

775
00:29:35,100 --> 00:29:37,320
and they let you make a
prediction of soft tissue

776
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,148
from skeletal features.

777
00:29:39,148 --> 00:29:41,790
The first type is a
negative one-way correlate.

778
00:29:41,790 --> 00:29:45,390
This means that skeletal
feature is always present

779
00:29:45,390 --> 00:29:47,490
if the soft tissue feature is present,

780
00:29:47,490 --> 00:29:49,830
but the soft tissue feature can be absent

781
00:29:49,830 --> 00:29:51,690
even if you have the skeletal feature.

782
00:29:51,690 --> 00:29:55,020
Here's an example, pouches.

783
00:29:55,020 --> 00:29:57,870
Animals that have pouches always
have these epipubic bones.

784
00:29:57,870 --> 00:29:59,070
You can see the line pointing there,

785
00:29:59,070 --> 00:30:01,380
and that helps support the pouch.

786
00:30:01,380 --> 00:30:04,350
So any pouch marsupial
today will have that bone,

787
00:30:04,350 --> 00:30:07,170
but you can have that bone
and still not have a pouch.

788
00:30:07,170 --> 00:30:09,480
The example, the only one I
could find was the numbat.

789
00:30:09,480 --> 00:30:10,770
This is a great animal.

790
00:30:10,770 --> 00:30:13,440
The numbat, type of marsupial
completely pouchless,

791
00:30:13,440 --> 00:30:15,150
but it still retains those bones.

792
00:30:15,150 --> 00:30:17,460
So if you were to find a
skeleton without that bone,

793
00:30:17,460 --> 00:30:19,050
you could say no pouch.

794
00:30:19,050 --> 00:30:20,130
But if you found it with the bone,

795
00:30:20,130 --> 00:30:22,890
you couldn't say on the flip
side it definitely had a pouch.

796
00:30:22,890 --> 00:30:24,600
It may or may not have.

797
00:30:24,600 --> 00:30:27,300
Better yet for fossils as
positive one-way correlates,

798
00:30:27,300 --> 00:30:30,690
this is when the soft tissue
feature is always present

799
00:30:30,690 --> 00:30:32,327
if the skeletal feature is present.

800
00:30:32,327 --> 00:30:34,440
It could still be present without it,

801
00:30:34,440 --> 00:30:36,990
but this is good enough for
us when we're paleontologists.

802
00:30:36,990 --> 00:30:39,030
And a good example is quill knobs.

803
00:30:39,030 --> 00:30:40,560
These are little bumps on the bones.

804
00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,640
And you see the bottom is a
vulture wing that's dissected.

805
00:30:44,640 --> 00:30:47,250
And above that you can see the
ulna bone, the shoulder bone,

806
00:30:47,250 --> 00:30:49,530
or sorry, the elbow bone with those knobs

807
00:30:49,530 --> 00:30:51,870
where the feathers attach by ligaments.

808
00:30:51,870 --> 00:30:53,640
Above that is a velociraptor bone.

809
00:30:53,640 --> 00:30:55,200
It has full knobs and so this shows

810
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:58,290
that this animal had feathers on its arm.

811
00:30:58,290 --> 00:31:00,660
So if you find those bumps
in any bird or any dinosaur,

812
00:31:00,660 --> 00:31:01,950
you know it had feathers.

813
00:31:01,950 --> 00:31:03,510
However, just because they're absent

814
00:31:03,510 --> 00:31:05,430
doesn't mean no feathers are present.

815
00:31:05,430 --> 00:31:06,690
We actually have dinosaurs with feathers

816
00:31:06,690 --> 00:31:08,730
that don't have these knobs.

817
00:31:08,730 --> 00:31:10,290
And the best of all is
a two-way correlate,

818
00:31:10,290 --> 00:31:11,250
a positive two-way correlate.

819
00:31:11,250 --> 00:31:13,080
This means skeletal feature's present,

820
00:31:13,080 --> 00:31:15,240
soft tissue's present,
vice versa, perfect.

821
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:17,520
And that's what we found
here for the plexus.

822
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:20,640
So the plexus is the soft
tissue vascular feature.

823
00:31:20,640 --> 00:31:22,320
The sulcus is a set of grooves

824
00:31:22,320 --> 00:31:24,508
that basically it's the
bones being pressed,

825
00:31:24,508 --> 00:31:27,266
sorry, the blood vessels
being pressed into the bones.

826
00:31:27,266 --> 00:31:29,910
Every bird that has this
plexus has the grooves

827
00:31:29,910 --> 00:31:30,828
or the sulcus.

828
00:31:30,828 --> 00:31:32,730
Every bird that doesn't have a plexus

829
00:31:32,730 --> 00:31:33,600
does not have a sulcus,

830
00:31:33,600 --> 00:31:34,830
at least of the ones we've dissected.

831
00:31:34,830 --> 00:31:36,030
So we said, all right, we're good to go.

832
00:31:36,030 --> 00:31:38,430
We can map this out in the fossil record.

833
00:31:38,430 --> 00:31:40,866
These are 3D scans of some
of the fossil penguin bones.

834
00:31:40,866 --> 00:31:43,770
Petradyptes is the third from the left.

835
00:31:43,770 --> 00:31:47,010
All of these ancient penguins
for the Paleocene Epoch,

836
00:31:47,010 --> 00:31:48,660
that's the first 10 million years or so

837
00:31:48,660 --> 00:31:50,348
of the age of mammals,

838
00:31:50,348 --> 00:31:51,780
none of them have a plexus.

839
00:31:51,780 --> 00:31:55,350
Modern penguins have the plexus
and they have the sulcus,

840
00:31:55,350 --> 00:31:58,620
and so what we're seeing
is the first penguins

841
00:31:58,620 --> 00:32:01,500
to get out of New Zealand
have that feature.

842
00:32:01,500 --> 00:32:03,060
And so Daniel and I hypothesized

843
00:32:03,060 --> 00:32:04,710
this may have been an important feature

844
00:32:04,710 --> 00:32:06,960
that let penguins spend a
longer time in the water,

845
00:32:06,960 --> 00:32:09,720
travel greater distances,
and escape from New Zealand.

846
00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:12,840
And we did a little bit
of statistical analysis.

847
00:32:12,840 --> 00:32:15,960
We used a likelihood model to predict

848
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:18,690
that loons, albatrosses,

849
00:32:18,690 --> 00:32:20,786
and early New Zealand
penguins lack the structure

850
00:32:20,786 --> 00:32:23,730
and that it was present
in all other penguins

851
00:32:23,730 --> 00:32:26,070
or in some cases the
humerus wasn't preserved,

852
00:32:26,070 --> 00:32:28,650
so we don't know except for
one weird equatorial penguin

853
00:32:28,650 --> 00:32:30,000
that lived in the Eocene.

854
00:32:30,000 --> 00:32:31,650
So we're not sure if
that animal didn't need

855
00:32:31,650 --> 00:32:35,790
this feature anymore or maybe
it just didn't preserve well

856
00:32:35,790 --> 00:32:37,260
because the animal wasn't fully grown

857
00:32:37,260 --> 00:32:38,093
or something like that.

858
00:32:38,093 --> 00:32:40,320
Still a little bit of a mystery.

859
00:32:40,320 --> 00:32:42,600
But what we see is
basically these old penguins

860
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,830
like Waimanu, Kumimanu, and
Petradyptes don't have it yet.

861
00:32:46,830 --> 00:32:48,510
The first penguins that get elsewhere

862
00:32:48,510 --> 00:32:50,490
have a very clear sulcus,

863
00:32:50,490 --> 00:32:52,680
indicating they had this
countercurrent system,

864
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:54,188
so they may have been able to travel

865
00:32:54,188 --> 00:32:56,190
across to other continents,

866
00:32:56,190 --> 00:32:57,630
and they get there quick.

867
00:32:57,630 --> 00:33:00,030
Couple million years after Kumimanu lived

868
00:33:00,030 --> 00:33:03,182
we have animals in
Antarctica, New Zealand,

869
00:33:03,182 --> 00:33:05,670
Australia, South America,

870
00:33:05,670 --> 00:33:08,070
basically everywhere in the
world penguins live today.

871
00:33:08,070 --> 00:33:10,260
And what's cool is this
feature is very important

872
00:33:10,260 --> 00:33:12,000
for penguins that live in Antarctica,

873
00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:13,710
but it's more of an exaptation.

874
00:33:13,710 --> 00:33:15,630
It's something that
originally had nothing to do

875
00:33:15,630 --> 00:33:18,060
with icy conditions on land.

876
00:33:18,060 --> 00:33:20,280
It was important for
foraging in the water.

877
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:22,290
But now is very, very useful for animals

878
00:33:22,290 --> 00:33:23,123
that are

879
00:33:23,123 --> 00:33:26,940
breeding in negative 40
degree temperatures up there.

880
00:33:26,940 --> 00:33:28,980
I guess I should say down there.

881
00:33:28,980 --> 00:33:30,450
So finally the last part of the talk,

882
00:33:30,450 --> 00:33:31,490
I'm gonna talk about the craziest penguin

883
00:33:31,490 --> 00:33:32,670
is the Crested Penguins.

884
00:33:32,670 --> 00:33:33,990
This is the Northern Rockhopper,

885
00:33:33,990 --> 00:33:36,306
which is the champion for flamboyance.

886
00:33:36,306 --> 00:33:38,130
It puts all the other ones to shame.

887
00:33:38,130 --> 00:33:40,988
And this is one of a group
of seven living species

888
00:33:40,988 --> 00:33:43,680
that have these yellow plumes.

889
00:33:43,680 --> 00:33:45,270
They have a pigment called spheniscin

890
00:33:45,270 --> 00:33:47,400
that's only found in penguins.

891
00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:48,390
It's a unique pigment.

892
00:33:48,390 --> 00:33:49,800
It's different than the yellow in birds

893
00:33:49,800 --> 00:33:52,230
like canaries or gold finches.

894
00:33:52,230 --> 00:33:53,610
And it's important for breeding.

895
00:33:53,610 --> 00:33:56,204
It's for species recognition
and for impressing mates.

896
00:33:56,204 --> 00:33:57,720
There's actually been experiments,

897
00:33:57,720 --> 00:33:59,310
I wish I can do these experiments.

898
00:33:59,310 --> 00:34:01,890
They capture them, they cut
their yellow feathers shorter,

899
00:34:01,890 --> 00:34:03,000
and then they let 'em go,

900
00:34:03,000 --> 00:34:05,370
and they lose 50% chance
of finding a mate.

901
00:34:05,370 --> 00:34:08,400
So it's very important for
these penguins to have this

902
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:09,903
to attract other penguins.

903
00:34:11,430 --> 00:34:13,530
So Daniel and I and some other colleagues

904
00:34:13,530 --> 00:34:17,897
actually have recently described
a fossil-crested penguin

905
00:34:17,897 --> 00:34:19,530
that's about 2 million years old,

906
00:34:19,530 --> 00:34:21,497
which we called Udyptes entatu.

907
00:34:21,497 --> 00:34:24,780
Entatu is basically dawn
in the Maori language

908
00:34:24,780 --> 00:34:26,940
because it's the first of this lineage.

909
00:34:26,940 --> 00:34:29,670
And it looks exactly like
a modern crested penguin

910
00:34:29,670 --> 00:34:32,760
in terms of the flipper,
the leg, the vertebrae.

911
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:33,720
But the big difference is

912
00:34:33,720 --> 00:34:37,380
it has a much more slender mandible.

913
00:34:37,380 --> 00:34:40,284
So these crested penguins
today have very deep bills

914
00:34:40,284 --> 00:34:41,940
and they have giant tongues.

915
00:34:41,940 --> 00:34:43,560
They have those spiky
tongues I showed you before,

916
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:45,160
and that helps them catch krill.

917
00:34:46,350 --> 00:34:50,040
That's the feature we also
see in stiff-tailed penguins,

918
00:34:50,040 --> 00:34:53,324
things like Deli Penguins
and Chin-strap Penguins.

919
00:34:53,324 --> 00:34:57,183
So this very, very deep
bill helps them capture

920
00:34:57,183 --> 00:35:00,780
more tiny planktonic shelling organisms.

921
00:35:00,780 --> 00:35:02,190
But the fossil doesn't have that yet.

922
00:35:02,190 --> 00:35:05,160
These are all laser scans of
different penguin's beaks.

923
00:35:05,160 --> 00:35:07,590
And we see this animal is clearly part

924
00:35:07,590 --> 00:35:08,760
of the crested penguin lineage

925
00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:10,857
but hasn't evolved that deep bill yet.

926
00:35:10,857 --> 00:35:13,920
And so it probably means
it's not yet focusing

927
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:14,753
as much on krill.

928
00:35:14,753 --> 00:35:16,500
And one of the things I
thought was fascinating

929
00:35:16,500 --> 00:35:19,230
is the changes we see
in the penguin skeleton.

930
00:35:19,230 --> 00:35:21,030
There's a lot of big
changes in the flipper

931
00:35:21,030 --> 00:35:22,530
and the leg early on.

932
00:35:22,530 --> 00:35:26,130
The skull is kind of static,
it's very long build,

933
00:35:26,130 --> 00:35:28,230
slender build for tens
of millions of years,

934
00:35:28,230 --> 00:35:30,680
and you only get all these different forms

935
00:35:30,680 --> 00:35:33,450
pretty recently in time in
the last 15 million years.

936
00:35:33,450 --> 00:35:35,126
And the deep bills are only coming up

937
00:35:35,126 --> 00:35:36,900
in the last two million years

938
00:35:36,900 --> 00:35:38,040
when we're starting to get glacial,

939
00:35:38,040 --> 00:35:39,540
interglacial ice age cycles.

940
00:35:39,540 --> 00:35:43,800
And so this helps create these
massive populations of krill

941
00:35:43,800 --> 00:35:44,910
under the Antarctic ice sheets.

942
00:35:44,910 --> 00:35:47,250
You can get trillions
of tons of these things.

943
00:35:47,250 --> 00:35:48,450
They're important for whales.

944
00:35:48,450 --> 00:35:50,550
Whales responded by getting much bigger.

945
00:35:50,550 --> 00:35:52,844
The largest whales alive
today only evolved a million

946
00:35:52,844 --> 00:35:55,170
or two million years ago

947
00:35:55,170 --> 00:35:57,270
and penguins did not manage to get

948
00:35:57,270 --> 00:35:58,103
to be a hundred feet long,

949
00:35:58,103 --> 00:36:00,540
but they did evolve
these new types of beaks

950
00:36:00,540 --> 00:36:03,810
that helped them take
advantage of this food source.

951
00:36:03,810 --> 00:36:07,860
So we think that probably
happened sometime

952
00:36:07,860 --> 00:36:10,230
between five and two million years ago,

953
00:36:10,230 --> 00:36:12,630
and it correlates really
well to the beginning

954
00:36:12,630 --> 00:36:15,933
of these ice age, interglacial cycles.

955
00:36:17,490 --> 00:36:20,070
And I thought one really cool
tie in with our genomic data

956
00:36:20,070 --> 00:36:24,300
is that penguins, they have
only one functional copy

957
00:36:24,300 --> 00:36:26,100
of the chia genes that help them,

958
00:36:26,100 --> 00:36:30,210
the chitinace gene that help
them to digest that chitin,

959
00:36:30,210 --> 00:36:33,960
that protein that's in
bug shells and shrimp

960
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:35,790
and crustaceans in their shell.

961
00:36:35,790 --> 00:36:37,502
You need that if you're
eating those animals.

962
00:36:37,502 --> 00:36:40,410
A lot of birds have completely lost them.

963
00:36:40,410 --> 00:36:42,604
So if you're eating fruit or leaves

964
00:36:42,604 --> 00:36:45,030
or you're a vulture that's scavenging

965
00:36:45,030 --> 00:36:46,920
or you're a hummingbird drinking nectar,

966
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:48,843
you don't need that gene
to digest your food.

967
00:36:48,843 --> 00:36:50,460
So it tends to get lost.

968
00:36:50,460 --> 00:36:53,460
In birds that eat shrimp or
birds that eat a lot of bugs,

969
00:36:53,460 --> 00:36:56,400
they tend to retain
multiple functional copies.

970
00:36:56,400 --> 00:36:58,230
And I thought it was weird
that penguins lost that

971
00:36:58,230 --> 00:37:00,990
because so many living
penguins love krill.

972
00:37:00,990 --> 00:37:01,860
It's like their thing.

973
00:37:01,860 --> 00:37:03,986
They eat 98% krill diets.

974
00:37:03,986 --> 00:37:05,820
But I think this ties
into the fossil record,

975
00:37:05,820 --> 00:37:07,620
again, this only evolved
two million years ago,

976
00:37:07,620 --> 00:37:09,180
so for a very long time,

977
00:37:09,180 --> 00:37:12,150
they're probably eating
mostly fish, maybe some squid,

978
00:37:12,150 --> 00:37:15,000
and not dealing with
these small crustaceans.

979
00:37:15,000 --> 00:37:17,280
And so they probably lost one by one,

980
00:37:17,280 --> 00:37:20,428
their ancestral number of chia genes

981
00:37:20,428 --> 00:37:23,010
and ended up luckily retaining one,

982
00:37:23,010 --> 00:37:25,050
because otherwise they
may never have been able

983
00:37:25,050 --> 00:37:29,073
to start eating that
stuff like they do today.

984
00:37:30,240 --> 00:37:31,710
So the very last part of the talk

985
00:37:31,710 --> 00:37:33,240
is the youngest fossil penguin.

986
00:37:33,240 --> 00:37:34,380
It also comes from New Zealand.

987
00:37:34,380 --> 00:37:36,660
So I tried to keep it in
New Zealand the whole time

988
00:37:36,660 --> 00:37:39,787
and this is a species we described in 2019

989
00:37:39,787 --> 00:37:41,190
from the Chatham Islands,

990
00:37:41,190 --> 00:37:43,026
which are about 500 kilometers

991
00:37:43,026 --> 00:37:45,780
to the east of mainland New Zealand.

992
00:37:45,780 --> 00:37:48,210
Beautiful, rugged place.

993
00:37:48,210 --> 00:37:53,210
It was colonized by humans
around 700 or 800 years ago.

994
00:37:53,700 --> 00:37:57,720
And these were the people
known as the Moriori.

995
00:37:57,720 --> 00:37:59,190
They have a very unique culture.

996
00:37:59,190 --> 00:38:02,190
They have these dendroglyphs,
these carvings in trees.

997
00:38:02,190 --> 00:38:04,380
They're genetically related to the people

998
00:38:04,380 --> 00:38:06,360
on mainland New Zealand, the Maori.

999
00:38:06,360 --> 00:38:09,750
There's actually a pretty
sad history of these islands,

1000
00:38:09,750 --> 00:38:11,850
which I won't really get into here.

1001
00:38:11,850 --> 00:38:15,746
But one thing we find
in some of the campsites

1002
00:38:15,746 --> 00:38:17,610
from the original sediments

1003
00:38:17,610 --> 00:38:21,360
when we're talking 700 years
ago or so are penguin bones.

1004
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:23,580
And Alan, my colleague who
found the giant penguin,

1005
00:38:23,580 --> 00:38:26,400
he also found penguin bones in midans,

1006
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:29,220
or ancient cooking sites where
people were butchering birds

1007
00:38:29,220 --> 00:38:32,010
and mammals and whatnot
and cooking them up,

1008
00:38:32,010 --> 00:38:33,600
and they look like this.

1009
00:38:33,600 --> 00:38:36,030
This is one of the beautiful skulls.

1010
00:38:36,030 --> 00:38:37,650
The problem is it's really hard

1011
00:38:37,650 --> 00:38:40,740
to tell crested penguins
apart from their skeletons.

1012
00:38:40,740 --> 00:38:43,200
If you took all seven species
and dumped the bones out

1013
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,720
into a pile, it'd be very
hard to sort them together.

1014
00:38:45,720 --> 00:38:48,600
The main differences are
in those head plumes.

1015
00:38:48,600 --> 00:38:53,600
So these sat around as a mystery
penguin for 15 or 20 years.

1016
00:38:55,320 --> 00:38:58,620
And then Tess Cole, she was
a PhD student at the time,

1017
00:38:58,620 --> 00:39:00,600
she's now earned her doctorate,

1018
00:39:00,600 --> 00:39:03,270
but she was studying mitochondrial DNA,

1019
00:39:03,270 --> 00:39:05,550
and she was able to
extract mitochondrial DNA

1020
00:39:05,550 --> 00:39:07,650
from these bones, which was just amazing.

1021
00:39:07,650 --> 00:39:09,450
And we figured out that
this was a new species

1022
00:39:09,450 --> 00:39:12,390
of crested penguin, which
we named Eudyptes warhami.

1023
00:39:12,390 --> 00:39:13,620
It's the the red one there.

1024
00:39:13,620 --> 00:39:15,270
This is a little time plot showing

1025
00:39:15,270 --> 00:39:18,510
that it probably split from
the Erich crested penguin

1026
00:39:18,510 --> 00:39:20,610
and other species that
lives in New Zealand

1027
00:39:20,610 --> 00:39:21,930
about two million years ago.

1028
00:39:21,930 --> 00:39:23,040
So this was a great species

1029
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:25,170
just already sitting in the museum,

1030
00:39:25,170 --> 00:39:29,430
but we needed the genetic data
to really prove what it was,

1031
00:39:29,430 --> 00:39:32,490
whether it was distinct,
and what it was related to.

1032
00:39:32,490 --> 00:39:34,140
And it's the only species of penguin

1033
00:39:34,140 --> 00:39:35,520
that was wiped out by humans.

1034
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:37,740
So penguins are lucky in a way.

1035
00:39:37,740 --> 00:39:40,830
Usually when humans get in
contact with flightless birds,

1036
00:39:40,830 --> 00:39:42,300
it doesn't end well for the birds.

1037
00:39:42,300 --> 00:39:45,390
We have examples like
the dodo, the solitaire,

1038
00:39:45,390 --> 00:39:46,980
elephant birds, moa,

1039
00:39:46,980 --> 00:39:49,140
all these wonderful
species that were wiped out

1040
00:39:49,140 --> 00:39:50,887
in the last thousand years or so

1041
00:39:50,887 --> 00:39:53,670
as people spread throughout the globe.

1042
00:39:53,670 --> 00:39:55,590
But penguins have mostly been spared

1043
00:39:55,590 --> 00:39:57,690
probably because they only
spend a little bit of time

1044
00:39:57,690 --> 00:39:58,860
on land in many cases.

1045
00:39:58,860 --> 00:40:00,660
So they're out at sea,

1046
00:40:00,660 --> 00:40:02,400
maybe you don't have
enough time to get 'em all

1047
00:40:02,400 --> 00:40:03,233
while they're on land.

1048
00:40:03,233 --> 00:40:06,407
But this is a cautionary tale
that penguins can go extinct,

1049
00:40:06,407 --> 00:40:08,520
and there are many that
are in danger today

1050
00:40:08,520 --> 00:40:11,730
from things like climate
change, over fishing,

1051
00:40:11,730 --> 00:40:15,870
habitat modification, oil spills
are the most dramatic thing

1052
00:40:15,870 --> 00:40:17,010
but they're one-off events,

1053
00:40:17,010 --> 00:40:19,260
whereas other other things are cumulative.

1054
00:40:19,260 --> 00:40:21,480
So there are many species
that are either threatened

1055
00:40:21,480 --> 00:40:22,800
or endangered today.

1056
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:27,330
And I think Eudyptes warhami
is a little bit of a emblem

1057
00:40:27,330 --> 00:40:30,387
for remembering how important they are

1058
00:40:30,387 --> 00:40:32,187
and how we should take care of them.

1059
00:40:33,450 --> 00:40:34,440
I wanna end with an instinction,

1060
00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:36,420
so I'll put the little
blue penguins back on,

1061
00:40:36,420 --> 00:40:39,963
and with that I'd be happy
to take some questions.

1062
00:40:47,610 --> 00:40:48,443
Now this is ridiculous.

1063
00:40:48,443 --> 00:40:49,830
I just realized if I moved the cursor

1064
00:40:49,830 --> 00:40:51,810
out of the side of the
screen the thing goes away,

1065
00:40:51,810 --> 00:40:53,673
but perfect, on the left side.

1066
00:40:59,850 --> 00:41:01,373
Do I have someone back there?

1067
00:41:05,284 --> 00:41:06,810
- [Audience Member 1] Can
you repeat the question?

1068
00:41:06,810 --> 00:41:07,643
- Sure.

1069
00:41:09,045 --> 00:41:13,212
(audience member asking question)

1070
00:41:24,900 --> 00:41:26,130
Yes, the question is

1071
00:41:26,130 --> 00:41:28,290
whether there's
countercurrent heat exchangers

1072
00:41:28,290 --> 00:41:30,600
in other parts of the
body besides the flipper,

1073
00:41:30,600 --> 00:41:32,087
and there are.

1074
00:41:32,087 --> 00:41:34,887
There's at least one in the leg,

1075
00:41:34,887 --> 00:41:37,740
there's one in the eye believe it or not.

1076
00:41:37,740 --> 00:41:40,380
And I believe there may be a few others.

1077
00:41:40,380 --> 00:41:42,720
None of those leave any
trace on the skeleton,

1078
00:41:42,720 --> 00:41:45,420
so we weren't able to do
anything in the fossil record.

1079
00:41:45,420 --> 00:41:47,370
But many birds have them,

1080
00:41:47,370 --> 00:41:49,440
A lot of wading birds
that stand in cold water,

1081
00:41:49,440 --> 00:41:51,780
even ducks I think will have them,

1082
00:41:51,780 --> 00:41:54,420
and it helps them where
you're standing in icy water

1083
00:41:54,420 --> 00:41:56,130
with your feet looking for something,

1084
00:41:56,130 --> 00:41:57,423
like if a heron or what,

1085
00:41:58,410 --> 00:42:00,960
it helps them conserve
their core body temperature.

1086
00:42:11,287 --> 00:42:13,986
(audience member speaking)

1087
00:42:13,986 --> 00:42:15,388
Okay.

1088
00:42:15,388 --> 00:42:16,626
- [Audience Member 2] As mentioned,

1089
00:42:16,626 --> 00:42:18,390
penguins often are wonderful
case study in evolution.

1090
00:42:18,390 --> 00:42:20,940
What are one or two general
principles or interesting facts

1091
00:42:20,940 --> 00:42:24,913
about evolution which share
based on your study of penguins?

1092
00:42:27,363 --> 00:42:30,381
- Oh sorry, can you repeat that?

1093
00:42:30,381 --> 00:42:34,050
- [Audience Member 2] General
principles of evolution

1094
00:42:34,050 --> 00:42:36,466
you've learned from penguins.

1095
00:42:36,466 --> 00:42:37,560
- From penguins.

1096
00:42:37,560 --> 00:42:40,890
I think one of the general
lessons penguins have for us

1097
00:42:40,890 --> 00:42:44,130
is sometimes you can lose something

1098
00:42:44,130 --> 00:42:46,320
that you thought was good
but was holding you back.

1099
00:42:46,320 --> 00:42:48,810
So I think losing flight
was the best thing

1100
00:42:48,810 --> 00:42:50,386
that ever happened to penguins.

1101
00:42:50,386 --> 00:42:55,050
When they first evolved they
were probably very similar

1102
00:42:55,050 --> 00:42:59,010
to things like puffins and
auks, and diving petrols,

1103
00:42:59,010 --> 00:43:00,480
birds that can fly through the air

1104
00:43:00,480 --> 00:43:03,708
and also propel themselves
underwater with their flippers.

1105
00:43:03,708 --> 00:43:05,100
If you wanna do that,

1106
00:43:05,100 --> 00:43:07,080
you can't get much bigger than two pounds

1107
00:43:07,080 --> 00:43:09,630
because you're basically
having a trade-off

1108
00:43:09,630 --> 00:43:12,390
between needing more muscle
to dive more efficiently

1109
00:43:12,390 --> 00:43:14,910
but then getting too heavy
to fly through the air.

1110
00:43:14,910 --> 00:43:17,070
Once penguins lose flight they
can get as big as they want.

1111
00:43:17,070 --> 00:43:18,540
You can see they do so very quickly.

1112
00:43:18,540 --> 00:43:20,280
That giant penguin I showed you,

1113
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:24,480
the gorilla penguin is
only about 9 million years

1114
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:26,130
after the Cretaceous mass extinction.

1115
00:43:26,130 --> 00:43:28,680
So pretty quickly they achieve giant size

1116
00:43:28,680 --> 00:43:31,548
and that's good for
diving, you can go deeper,

1117
00:43:31,548 --> 00:43:34,290
you can store more oxygen
in your blood and muscles,

1118
00:43:34,290 --> 00:43:37,320
and so you can actually
stay underwater longer,

1119
00:43:37,320 --> 00:43:38,825
and you're much more efficient

1120
00:43:38,825 --> 00:43:42,630
because your volume scales
faster than your surface area

1121
00:43:42,630 --> 00:43:44,190
so you can conserve body temperature

1122
00:43:44,190 --> 00:43:45,450
much better underwater too.

1123
00:43:45,450 --> 00:43:49,740
So, yeah I think that's a
big breakthrough for penguins

1124
00:43:49,740 --> 00:43:50,640
to give up flight.

1125
00:43:52,828 --> 00:43:56,700
(audience member asking question)

1126
00:43:56,700 --> 00:43:57,990
That's a great question.

1127
00:43:57,990 --> 00:43:59,220
So in case people didn't hear,

1128
00:43:59,220 --> 00:44:02,280
why don't penguins get past
the equator, basically?

1129
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:04,350
They do, but it's like a technicality.

1130
00:44:04,350 --> 00:44:07,980
So the Galapagos penguin
is literally half a mile

1131
00:44:07,980 --> 00:44:10,350
over the equator, just barely.

1132
00:44:10,350 --> 00:44:13,530
The reasons are probably
related to ocean currents.

1133
00:44:13,530 --> 00:44:18,300
You have this great upwelling
currents around Peru

1134
00:44:18,300 --> 00:44:21,026
and on the coast of South Africa,

1135
00:44:21,026 --> 00:44:23,430
the circum Antarctic
current around Antarctica.

1136
00:44:23,430 --> 00:44:26,580
And so these provide a lot of nutrients

1137
00:44:26,580 --> 00:44:27,540
which attract plankton,

1138
00:44:27,540 --> 00:44:30,060
which attracts small fish
and bigger fish, et cetera.

1139
00:44:30,060 --> 00:44:32,280
So they're really rich for feeding.

1140
00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:33,420
You kind of get near the equator,

1141
00:44:33,420 --> 00:44:36,030
and it's like the doldrums
and there's not much going on.

1142
00:44:36,030 --> 00:44:38,640
And so I don't think
it's a thermal barrier

1143
00:44:38,640 --> 00:44:40,260
'cause there are penguins in Peru

1144
00:44:40,260 --> 00:44:41,880
and there's penguins in Africa

1145
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:43,650
and there's penguins in the Galapagos,

1146
00:44:43,650 --> 00:44:46,584
but it's more probably
just lack of food source.

1147
00:44:46,584 --> 00:44:49,505
There are penguin-like birds in the north,

1148
00:44:49,505 --> 00:44:50,790
there's the great auk,

1149
00:44:50,790 --> 00:44:54,300
which unfortunately we
wiped out 150 years ago.

1150
00:44:54,300 --> 00:44:56,190
There was another group
called the plot of terrids

1151
00:44:56,190 --> 00:45:00,960
that lived in Washington and
Oregon State and in Japan,

1152
00:45:00,960 --> 00:45:02,220
and they were very penguin-like,

1153
00:45:02,220 --> 00:45:04,740
they got emperor size,
completely flightless,

1154
00:45:04,740 --> 00:45:07,410
but they died out without us
having anything to do with it.

1155
00:45:07,410 --> 00:45:09,390
So there's no reason to say they can't,

1156
00:45:09,390 --> 00:45:13,143
they just can't get past
that food dead zone, I think.

1157
00:45:17,068 --> 00:45:18,660
- [Audience Member 3] There
are a couple of questions.

1158
00:45:18,660 --> 00:45:21,600
Are there any examples of
cohabitation and symbiosis

1159
00:45:21,600 --> 00:45:24,247
with penguins and other animals?

1160
00:45:24,247 --> 00:45:26,188
And then another one is,

1161
00:45:26,188 --> 00:45:29,340
why does the size of the
humerus scale so precisely

1162
00:45:29,340 --> 00:45:31,380
with body size?

1163
00:45:31,380 --> 00:45:32,310
- Well the first question is,

1164
00:45:32,310 --> 00:45:35,850
is there any example of
symbiosis with penguins,

1165
00:45:35,850 --> 00:45:38,610
and I can't immediately think of any,

1166
00:45:38,610 --> 00:45:41,760
unless you consider that
they've trained us to feed them

1167
00:45:41,760 --> 00:45:46,167
and build water slides for
them and stuff like that.

1168
00:45:46,167 --> 00:45:49,140
So I don't think, they
don't feed cooperatively

1169
00:45:49,140 --> 00:45:51,753
with other species as far as I know.

1170
00:45:52,740 --> 00:45:56,280
The second question was why
does a humerus scale so well

1171
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:57,603
with body size?

1172
00:45:59,580 --> 00:46:00,810
My friend Daniel Fields,

1173
00:46:00,810 --> 00:46:02,160
he was the one who did the regression,

1174
00:46:02,160 --> 00:46:05,228
so he's looked at 20 or
30 different measurements,

1175
00:46:05,228 --> 00:46:08,070
the shoulder bones, the wings, the legs

1176
00:46:08,070 --> 00:46:10,050
in different bird groups
and tried to figure out

1177
00:46:10,050 --> 00:46:13,225
which ones had the tightest
correlation to body mass.

1178
00:46:13,225 --> 00:46:16,350
Femur is generally very good.

1179
00:46:16,350 --> 00:46:18,720
Humerus turned out to be
quite good for penguins.

1180
00:46:18,720 --> 00:46:21,420
And I think that's because
the two that we use

1181
00:46:21,420 --> 00:46:26,130
that had a very high R
value were right here,

1182
00:46:26,130 --> 00:46:29,160
the width at the shoulder joint
and then the overall length.

1183
00:46:29,160 --> 00:46:33,090
And I think that's because
basically you're transferring

1184
00:46:33,090 --> 00:46:36,600
all of your thrust from the
wing to the body at this joint

1185
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:39,780
and so it has to have
some kind of safety valve.

1186
00:46:39,780 --> 00:46:41,610
You can't really skimp there

1187
00:46:41,610 --> 00:46:45,420
or you risk basically
dislocating your flipper.

1188
00:46:45,420 --> 00:46:47,945
So I think because they're wing propelled,

1189
00:46:47,945 --> 00:46:50,820
it's even more important than
the way they walk on land.

1190
00:46:50,820 --> 00:46:53,250
I've actually seen a
one-legged penguin in Africa

1191
00:46:53,250 --> 00:46:54,720
just doing completely fine.

1192
00:46:54,720 --> 00:46:57,240
It would go out and swim,
come back, go to its nest,

1193
00:46:57,240 --> 00:46:59,881
hopping around on one leg,
as long as its flippers work.

1194
00:46:59,881 --> 00:47:03,570
So I think because it's so
essential to locomotion,

1195
00:47:03,570 --> 00:47:04,981
it scales well.

1196
00:47:04,981 --> 00:47:07,650
That being said, the femur is fine too.

1197
00:47:07,650 --> 00:47:10,770
The leg bone, the thigh bone
is good, strong regression.

1198
00:47:10,770 --> 00:47:12,870
We just didn't have that bone
for that particular penguin,

1199
00:47:12,870 --> 00:47:13,970
so we couldn't use it.

1200
00:47:16,470 --> 00:47:17,303
Sir?

1201
00:47:22,530 --> 00:47:25,200
So the question is why are
there no giant penguins today?

1202
00:47:25,200 --> 00:47:27,360
And I think that's...

1203
00:47:27,360 --> 00:47:29,100
it's a question that troubles me.

1204
00:47:29,100 --> 00:47:31,500
So why are there no giant penguins?

1205
00:47:31,500 --> 00:47:33,270
I don't think anyone's
fully resolved that.

1206
00:47:33,270 --> 00:47:38,270
The leading hypothesis is
probably that we have competition

1207
00:47:38,610 --> 00:47:40,560
from seals and sea lion from Pinniped.

1208
00:47:40,560 --> 00:47:43,710
So around the time giant
penguins go extinct,

1209
00:47:43,710 --> 00:47:45,961
which is roughly 15 million years ago,

1210
00:47:45,961 --> 00:47:48,870
we see seals and sea
lions and their relatives

1211
00:47:48,870 --> 00:47:50,250
spreading throughout
the southern hemisphere.

1212
00:47:50,250 --> 00:47:53,160
And the big penguins, they're
overlapping with small seals,

1213
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:55,860
and so it may be competition for food,

1214
00:47:55,860 --> 00:48:00,780
it may also be competition
in terms of breeding space.

1215
00:48:00,780 --> 00:48:02,730
So you're imagining two penguins,

1216
00:48:02,730 --> 00:48:04,380
and they've got their
egg, and they're so happy.

1217
00:48:04,380 --> 00:48:07,230
And then two elephant seals
start fighting on the beach

1218
00:48:07,230 --> 00:48:08,310
and crush the egg.

1219
00:48:08,310 --> 00:48:12,180
They really monopolize what
we call haul out territories,

1220
00:48:12,180 --> 00:48:14,280
where animals who are ocean going

1221
00:48:14,280 --> 00:48:15,270
and come and lay their eggs,

1222
00:48:15,270 --> 00:48:16,350
and so that could be part of it.

1223
00:48:16,350 --> 00:48:18,480
That's something Ken Warhide,

1224
00:48:18,480 --> 00:48:20,520
a paleontologist who works in Seattle,

1225
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:22,980
has suggested quite a while ago.

1226
00:48:22,980 --> 00:48:25,050
It could also be predation
to a certain extent,

1227
00:48:25,050 --> 00:48:27,870
but I think the nesting thing
actually makes more sense

1228
00:48:27,870 --> 00:48:30,000
to me than food or predation.

1229
00:48:30,000 --> 00:48:34,140
So we don't really know, that's
the best guess right now.

1230
00:48:34,140 --> 00:48:36,841
It's too bad though, it's kind of sad.

1231
00:48:36,841 --> 00:48:38,500
(audience member asking question)

1232
00:48:38,500 --> 00:48:39,333
Yes.

1233
00:48:40,317 --> 00:48:41,150
Oh.

1234
00:48:44,460 --> 00:48:45,293
Oh, great.

1235
00:48:46,681 --> 00:48:51,681
(audience member
continues asking question)

1236
00:48:59,010 --> 00:49:03,480
Yeah, so I wanted to be a
paleontologist when I was two.

1237
00:49:03,480 --> 00:49:06,030
So I wanted to drive
trains when I was one.

1238
00:49:06,030 --> 00:49:09,257
Then I got into dinosaurs
and I never changed again.

1239
00:49:09,257 --> 00:49:10,170
(Daniel chuckles)

1240
00:49:10,170 --> 00:49:11,893
So I was in graduate school when I was,

1241
00:49:11,893 --> 00:49:16,380
I started when I was 22, so
not that different than 20.

1242
00:49:16,380 --> 00:49:18,090
And I wanted to work on dinosaurs

1243
00:49:18,090 --> 00:49:21,038
and then I realized every group
was being so heavily worked

1244
00:49:21,038 --> 00:49:22,440
on by other people,

1245
00:49:22,440 --> 00:49:24,580
but in the museum there was a drawer

1246
00:49:24,580 --> 00:49:28,500
that this paleontologist
George Simpson had collected

1247
00:49:28,500 --> 00:49:30,810
in 1930s and forties,

1248
00:49:30,810 --> 00:49:32,910
and there were 200 fossils

1249
00:49:32,910 --> 00:49:34,800
and nobody was looking at them at all.

1250
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:36,840
So I can just work on these.

1251
00:49:36,840 --> 00:49:38,940
And they're great because
one, it's that transition,

1252
00:49:38,940 --> 00:49:41,250
it's from flying to flightless aquatic,

1253
00:49:41,250 --> 00:49:44,370
so it's a great, there's
a lot going on there

1254
00:49:44,370 --> 00:49:45,203
that you can study.

1255
00:49:45,203 --> 00:49:47,400
And two was these fossils were described

1256
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:49,320
by the greatest
paleontologists of all time

1257
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:50,160
in some people's eyes.

1258
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:52,170
I don't want to try to redo his work,

1259
00:49:52,170 --> 00:49:54,870
but he didn't have access to
any of these technologies.

1260
00:49:54,870 --> 00:49:58,290
So we had a skull 1938, you
can just write about it.

1261
00:49:58,290 --> 00:49:59,720
Now you can CT scan it.

1262
00:49:59,720 --> 00:50:02,490
So we scanned it and I looked
at the brain morphology

1263
00:50:02,490 --> 00:50:03,323
in the thesis,

1264
00:50:03,323 --> 00:50:06,420
then we looked at taking
microscope sections from the bones

1265
00:50:06,420 --> 00:50:07,410
and looking at growth patterns,

1266
00:50:07,410 --> 00:50:09,262
which weren't known back then.

1267
00:50:09,262 --> 00:50:11,100
Getting DNA from fossils,

1268
00:50:11,100 --> 00:50:13,110
that was completely
unimaginable at that time.

1269
00:50:13,110 --> 00:50:15,630
And so there is 12 different techniques

1270
00:50:15,630 --> 00:50:17,460
that could be applied to
this big pile of fossils.

1271
00:50:17,460 --> 00:50:19,890
So it was like opportunity
and then, oh my god,

1272
00:50:19,890 --> 00:50:22,380
they're so cool, look what they're doing.

1273
00:50:22,380 --> 00:50:23,340
I'm gonna go to the zoo now,

1274
00:50:23,340 --> 00:50:24,990
watch 'em flying through the water.

1275
00:50:24,990 --> 00:50:27,720
And I think just a good
question and a good opportunity

1276
00:50:27,720 --> 00:50:28,680
at the same time.

1277
00:50:28,680 --> 00:50:30,270
I'm so glad I got out dinosaurs.

1278
00:50:30,270 --> 00:50:31,650
I mean technically they are dinosaurs,

1279
00:50:31,650 --> 00:50:34,863
but not real dinosaurs,
I like the penguins.

1280
00:50:39,662 --> 00:50:41,160
- [Audience Member 4] When penguins swim,

1281
00:50:41,160 --> 00:50:42,930
do their feathers help keep the warm

1282
00:50:42,930 --> 00:50:45,870
along with the
countercurrent heat exchange?

1283
00:50:45,870 --> 00:50:48,930
- The question is how penguins stay warm,

1284
00:50:48,930 --> 00:50:51,120
whether they need other features

1285
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:52,650
other than countercurrent heat exchange.

1286
00:50:52,650 --> 00:50:53,493
They do.

1287
00:50:54,330 --> 00:50:58,710
Penguins have a really
great ancilitory layer.

1288
00:50:58,710 --> 00:51:01,658
So if you slice a penguin
in half, which we have done,

1289
00:51:01,658 --> 00:51:03,810
we're gonna have a plastinated
penguin in our exhibit,

1290
00:51:03,810 --> 00:51:07,110
so it's basically preserved
by just turning the tissues

1291
00:51:07,110 --> 00:51:08,601
into plastic essentially.

1292
00:51:08,601 --> 00:51:11,820
You'll see the feathers,
they're really thick layer,

1293
00:51:11,820 --> 00:51:13,260
it's like wearing a big downy coat.

1294
00:51:13,260 --> 00:51:15,220
So they're waterproof on the outside

1295
00:51:16,180 --> 00:51:18,240
because they use oil from
this gland in their tails,

1296
00:51:18,240 --> 00:51:20,100
and then they're downy underneath that,

1297
00:51:20,100 --> 00:51:22,020
that helps trap air and helps trap heat.

1298
00:51:22,020 --> 00:51:25,050
And then under that they tend
to have a pretty thick layer

1299
00:51:25,050 --> 00:51:26,040
of fat, like blubber.

1300
00:51:26,040 --> 00:51:29,490
And so together the feathers
and the blubber waterproof

1301
00:51:29,490 --> 00:51:31,230
and insulate them.

1302
00:51:31,230 --> 00:51:33,810
The flippers don't have much fat,

1303
00:51:33,810 --> 00:51:34,740
they don't have much of anything.

1304
00:51:34,740 --> 00:51:35,970
If you dissect a penguin wing,

1305
00:51:35,970 --> 00:51:37,340
it's like feathers and right under that

1306
00:51:37,340 --> 00:51:39,840
is basically bone and it's all tendons.

1307
00:51:39,840 --> 00:51:42,030
So the muscles almost end here

1308
00:51:42,030 --> 00:51:43,530
and the rest is just tendons going out

1309
00:51:43,530 --> 00:51:45,630
because they don't need
to fold it or anything.

1310
00:51:45,630 --> 00:51:48,990
So I always say penguin wings
would be the worst bar snack,

1311
00:51:48,990 --> 00:51:50,370
like a whole bucket of penguin wings,

1312
00:51:50,370 --> 00:51:52,121
you'd get like two bites.

1313
00:51:52,121 --> 00:51:53,670
Would have to have pretty good sauce

1314
00:51:53,670 --> 00:51:55,020
to make it worth your time.

1315
00:51:57,240 --> 00:52:01,102
Yeah, enough beer to eat one penguin wing.

1316
00:52:01,102 --> 00:52:02,281
(Daniel laughs)

1317
00:52:02,281 --> 00:52:04,020
- [Audience Member 2]
We'll do one more question.

1318
00:52:04,020 --> 00:52:06,140
Have the penguins methods
of protecting their eggs

1319
00:52:06,140 --> 00:52:08,070
and offspring as well as themselves

1320
00:52:08,070 --> 00:52:11,460
changed at all through
their evolutionary times?

1321
00:52:11,460 --> 00:52:14,790
- The question is
whether penguin's methods

1322
00:52:14,790 --> 00:52:17,010
for defending their eggs
and chicks have changed

1323
00:52:17,010 --> 00:52:18,382
over evolutionary time.

1324
00:52:18,382 --> 00:52:19,740
I don't know.

1325
00:52:19,740 --> 00:52:22,770
We don't have any fossil eggs older

1326
00:52:22,770 --> 00:52:24,060
than a couple hundred years,

1327
00:52:24,060 --> 00:52:26,310
so we don't really know
if fossil penguin eggs

1328
00:52:26,310 --> 00:52:28,340
were different than modern penguin eggs.

1329
00:52:28,340 --> 00:52:32,484
I think one obvious difference
is if you had Kumimanu,

1330
00:52:32,484 --> 00:52:34,862
you see little penguins
getting attacked by skua

1331
00:52:34,862 --> 00:52:39,060
like the seagull would land
and you could just step on it

1332
00:52:39,060 --> 00:52:40,230
and wouldn't really matter.

1333
00:52:40,230 --> 00:52:42,840
So I think the large
species were invulnerable

1334
00:52:42,840 --> 00:52:43,920
probably to some predators

1335
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:46,050
that might bother little penguins today.

1336
00:52:46,050 --> 00:52:47,220
Other than that,

1337
00:52:47,220 --> 00:52:50,070
it's likely that the male and female

1338
00:52:50,070 --> 00:52:51,060
raised the egg together,

1339
00:52:51,060 --> 00:52:53,790
which is what all living penguins do.

1340
00:52:53,790 --> 00:52:55,401
And that's because it
takes a lot of effort

1341
00:52:55,401 --> 00:52:58,290
to grow those chicks 'til they can

1342
00:52:58,290 --> 00:53:00,030
before the season change,

1343
00:53:00,030 --> 00:53:02,520
something was raised their
chicks over six months

1344
00:53:02,520 --> 00:53:03,690
or more of time.

1345
00:53:03,690 --> 00:53:07,590
So I think it would likely
be cooperative and similar,

1346
00:53:07,590 --> 00:53:10,560
but we don't really have any eggs yet,

1347
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:12,110
so maybe someone will find one.

1348
00:53:16,380 --> 00:53:17,970
- [Host] Thanks very much, Dr. Kspepka

1349
00:53:17,970 --> 00:53:19,340
That was a lovely talk, very interesting

1350
00:53:19,340 --> 00:53:20,173
- Thank you.