Pygoscelis

Brush-tailed penguins
Temporal range: Eocene to present
Pygoscelis antarctica
Scientific classification
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Aves
Order:Sphenisciformes
Family:Spheniscidae
Genus:Pygoscelis
Wagler, 1832
Species

Pygoscelis adeliae
Pygoscelis antarctica
Pygoscelis papua
†Pygoscelis tyreei (fossil)
†Pygoscelis calderensis (fossil)
†Pygoscelis grandis (fossil)

The genus Pygoscelis ("rump-legged") contains three living species of penguins collectively known as "brush-tailed penguins".[1]

Taxonomy

Mitochondrial and nuclear DNA evidence suggests the genus split from other penguins around 38 million years ago, about 2 million years after the ancestors of the genus Aptenodytes. In turn, the Adelie penguins split off from the other members of the genus around 19 million years ago.[2]

The three extant species are:

Extinct species:

  • Pygoscelis grandis (Bahía Inglesa Formation, Late Miocene/Early Pliocene of Bahía Inglesa, Chile)
  • Pygoscelis calderensis (Bahía Inglesa Formation, Late Miocene of Bahía Inglesa, Chile)
  • Pygoscelis tyreei (Pliocene of New Zealand)

The latter two are tentatively assigned to this genus.

Species photographs

Photographs of adult penguins of the extant (living) species:

References

  1. ↑ "Pygoscelis". www.pinguins.info. 2000. Retrieved 2016-10-02.
  2. ↑ Baker AJ, Pereira SL, Haddrath OP, Edge KA (2006). "Multiple gene evidence for expansion of extant penguins out of Antarctica due to global cooling". Proc Biol Sci. 273 (1582): 11–17. doi:10.1098/rspb.2005.3260. PMC 1560011. PMID 16519228.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.