The largest known penguin species has been discovered. It was up to almost 6 feet tall and may have weighed over 200 pounds. It lived 55 million years ago. Penguins are an ancient lineage, showing up at least 60 million years ago.
I saw that in the paper yesterday and was going to post about it for you @DavidBrown
The bones were found in a small rock which Alan Tennyson (one of the authors) found on the beach. He saw a bone end visible so took it back to Te Papa knowing it would probably contain something interesting. However they didn't have the equipment available for extracting the bones so the rock just sat on a shelf at the museum for years (contrary to the above article's suggestion that immediately after the find, "realizing that it was almost as old as Waimanu, Dr. Mayr and his colleagues eagerly studied Kumimanu for a better picture of early penguin evolution").
The article I read was specific that it is the largest penguin known from a good sample of bones - larger species are known but from much fewer bones so their sizes are very much more estimated.
