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Extinct penguin species rediscovered
Researchers studying the yellow-eyed penguin species that are facing extinction, undiscovered a previously unknown species that disappeared about 500 years ago.
These Waitaha penguins were extinct by 1500, probably because of humans hunting them.
Philip Seddon of Otago University, a co-author of the study believes that their disappearence allowed another kind of penguin to thrive , namely the yellow-eyed species that now also faces extinction.
Some of the bones they tested on DNA were found to be older and that "lead us to describe a new penguin species that became extinct only a few hundred years ago," the team reported in a paper in the biological research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.
According to Seddon, there was a time gap between the disappearance of the Waitaha and the arrival of the yellow-eyed penguin.
The yellow-eyed penguin is considered one of the world's rarest penguin species. It is estimated that there is only a remaining population of 7,000 in New Zealand. They are the focus of an extensive conservation effort.
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Te Papa Whale exhibition in Washington, DC