New Miocene Fossils and the History of Penguins in Australia

Australia has a fossil record of penguins reaching back to the Eocene, yet today is inhabited by just one breeding species, the little penguin Eudyptula minor. The description of recently collected penguin fossils from the re-dated upper Miocene Port Campbell Limestone of Portland (Victoria), in add...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PLOS ONE
Main Authors: Park, T, Fitzgerald, EMG, Gallagher, SJ, Tomkins, E, Allan, T
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE 2016
Subjects:
Antarctic
New Zealand
Antarc*
Antarctica
Antarctica New Zealand
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/11343/91598
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000374973600034&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=d4d813f4571fa7d6246bdc0dfeca3a1c
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0153915
Description
Summary:Australia has a fossil record of penguins reaching back to the Eocene, yet today is inhabited by just one breeding species, the little penguin Eudyptula minor. The description of recently collected penguin fossils from the re-dated upper Miocene Port Campbell Limestone of Portland (Victoria), in addition to reanalysis of previously described material, has allowed the Cenozoic history of penguins in Australia to be placed into a global context for the first time. Australian pre-Quaternary fossil penguins represent stem taxa phylogenetically disparate from each other and E. minor, implying multiple dispersals and extinctions. Late Eocene penguins from Australia are closest to contemporaneous taxa in Antarctica, New Zealand and South America. Given current material, the Miocene Australian fossil penguin fauna is apparently unique in harbouring 'giant penguins' after they went extinct elsewhere; and including stem taxa until at least 6 Ma, by which time crown penguins dominated elsewhere in the southern hemisphere. Separation of Australia from Antarctica during the Palaeogene, and its subsequent drift north, appears to have been a major event in Australian penguin biogeography. Increasing isolation through the Cenozoic may have limited penguin dispersal to Australia from outside the Australasian region, until intensification of the eastwards-flowing Antarctic Circumpolar Current in the mid-Miocene established a potential new dispersal vector to Australia.

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