Penguins, Evolution and Tall Tales

A while ago, I posted an article about the amazing design of penguins' ability to swim. Now there's something even more amazing: Stories about how they evolved. There are claims that the puzzle of penguin evolution are "solved".

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There is a great deal of conjecture and outright guesswork, but nothing that resembles actual science. It makes much more sense to believe that penguins were actually designed the way they are, instead of making up tall tales to fit evolutionary presuppositions. After all, the fossil record is still a hostile witness to evolution.

Penguins are superb swimmers, well adapted to their Antarctic climate.  They use their wings to “fly” in a different fluid—water, not air.  The sight of a swarm of penguins darting through the water under the ice with speed and grace makes for dramatic film footage.  Most of the major science news sites (e.g., BBC News, National Geographic, Science Now, Nature News, New Scientist) are claiming that the “puzzle” of penguin flightlessness has been “solved” in a new study published in PNAS.  Earlier theories suggested that the lack of predators led to flightlessness, or that evolution had a hard time producing a wing that was good at both flying and swimming.

An international team took a different approach.  They measured the energy demands of flight.  There’s no question that maintaining flight in the air is costly.  Some birds, like cormorants and penguins, are good at both.  But if aerial flight is not required for successful feeding, a bird could focus its wings, feet, and other body parts on just the swimming.

You can read the rest of "The Evolution of Penguins", here.



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