It would be easy to think that the evolution of penguins took place in Antarctica, but this does not seem to be the case. Some believe that the вЂњbasal PenguinвЂќ lived somewhere in what was Gondwana, a large mass of land that was in the process of fragmentation and which would later become Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica and parts of South America. Somehow, the first ancestors of penguins are related to flying birds, but the truth is that modern penguins did evolve from non-flying birds ThatвЂ™s the difference.

It is believed that the penguins are derived from a type of bird that is able to fly. In this sense, penguins and Procellariiformes are genetically close. It suggests penguins are brothers of the birds of the order Procellariiformes, which includes albatrosses, petrels, and storm petrels. Podiceps and little grebes are also closely related to them.ДЄ 2014 study entitled вЂњGenomes of Two Antarctic Penguins,вЂќ reveals a vision of their evolutionary history and the molecular changes related to the Antarctic environment (Wang, Jung Zhang, Guojie, David M. In general, three groups of birds share many similarities with the modern penguins, suggesting that these groups could have some ancestor in common. Because of their resemblance to cormorants, razorbills, puffins and other members of the Alcidae family, some scientists believe they are related to them, but the relationship is not very close they are cases of convergent evolution, in which groups of species evolve independently but in a similar way. Some scientists believe that the earliest ancestors may have been flying birds that lived 60-65 million years ago during the Cretaceous Period. Their basal ancestor, the first to separate from other groups of birds, lived 71-68 million years ago, although this period can extend to 40-100 million years. Genetic analyses indicate that members of the Spheniscidae family, the present penguins, evolved from non-flying birds whose ancestors were very different from what we could imagine. Do they descend from flying birds or their ancestors were already non-flying birds? Why would they lose their ability to roam the skies? These questions are not easy to answer, but some hypotheses try to explain the mystery of their existence. The evolutionary history of penguins is an issue that still intrigues researchers.

Platypus evolution timeline