After thousands of years, scientists have finally discovered the reason why the Mayans vanished

 THE 350-POUND PENGUIN THAT ONCE ROLLED EARTH

The Earth was a radically different planet fifty million years ago, during the Eocene Epoch, with lush forests and enormous valleys where tapirs, rhinoceroses, and horses roamed freely. Each new fossil find provides important new information on how the ancient world would have looked. However, a recent discovery has caught the internet's interest and brought up the topic of linebacker-sized penguins.

The South Island of New Zealand's North Otago region is home to the newly discovered species, which goes by the name Kumimanu Fordyce. Due to its size resembling towering basketball stars like Shaquille O'Neal and heavyweight professional football players, this extinct penguin species has aroused interest.

What sort of comparisons may be drawn between Kumimanu Fordyce and other penguin species, both extant and extinct? The emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri), which weighs about 100 pounds, is the dominant species of penguin in the modern world. In terms of ancient species, the Palaeeudyptes Lebowski, which lived in Antarctica about 37 million years ago, came in as a close second. This magnificent being weighed a gigantic 256 pounds and measured 6.6 feet in height.

This is our best guess at height for Kumimanu fordycei (we have a good mass regression, but height is tricky without any leg bones so we did not estimate it in the paper). These cutouts will be available for selfies when we open the @thebrucemuseum Penguins exhibit this spring! pic.twitter.com/ajRiYFCHGH

— Daniel Ksepka (@KsepkaLab) February 8, 2023

Due to the incompleteness of the skeletal remains, it is difficult for experts to pinpoint Kumimanu Fordycei's exact height. However, scientists have calculated its weight by examining bone size and density. Kumimanu Fordyce is a genuinely amazing spectacle that would have graced the beaches of New Zealand 57 million years ago, according to Daniel Field from Cambridge University. It is one of the most fascinating birds ever discovered due to its enormous size and the fragmentary nature of its remains.

Extensive evidence of enormous extinct forms of modern animals can be found in the fossil record. These findings pose two crucial questions regarding anything from penguins the size of Super Bowl players to scorpions the size of large dogs and gigantic woolly mammoths. First, why did ancient Earth once support giants in such a hospitable environment? Second, did these enormous animals behave like their contemporary counterparts did?

The first question's response is based on the theory that creatures were able to grow to exaggerated sizes because the oxygen content of the Earth's atmosphere was substantially higher. In response to the second query, scientists think that enormous penguins made use of their size advantage. This involved pursuing and killing larger prey and controlling their body temperatures during protracted cold-water swims. Some researchers hypothesize that these extinct penguins could dive to great depths, giving them access to environments that their living relatives today would never explore.

Ancient penguins probably could not foretell the outcome of the Super Bowl, despite their amazing features. Although Ripley's Aquarium of Myrtle Beach asserts that their "MVPs" (most valuable penguins) accurately identified the Kansas City Chiefs as the 2023 Super Bowl victor before the teams even faced off, this prediction probably goes beyond the capabilities of penguins.