Fossils may reveal 20-million-year history of penguins in Australia

AUSTRALIA - A study has found that there have been multiple times that different groups of penguins arrived and established themselves in Australia after the continent split from Antarctica. The arrivals included a group of 'giant penguins' that may have lived in Australia after they went extinct elsewhere. The study, by Travis Park from Monash University and colleagues, was recently published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Marine preserve to help penguins in a ‘predictably unpredictable’ place

An adult Galapagos penguin. Credit: Dee Boersma

ECUADOR – Since the Galapagos penguins can’t clap, Professor Dee Boersma will do it for them.

Boersma, a conservationist and professor of biology at the University of Washington, is applauding new regulations by the government of Ecuador to protect the waters around the Galapagos Islands as a marine preserve.

“It is very exciting,” said Boersma, who is a finalist for the 2016 Indianapolis Prize for her decades of penguin research and conservation efforts.

“We’ve been working for years in the Galapagos, advising officials in Ecuador to protect the fish-rich waters that penguins and other species rely upon for food.”