Think about the largest penguin you’ve ever seen. It’s probably an emperor penguin, and it probably stands less than 4 feet tall. According to the Associated Press, a penguin much larger than that was recently discovered in New Zealand, measuring nearly six-feet tall.
To help people better understand the size of enormous flightless aquatic bird, AP specifically compared it to another Penguin: Pittsburgh captain Sidney Crosby.
Ice breaker: Fossils from New Zealand reveal a giant penguin that was about the size of a grown man. In fact, it was about as big as Sidney Crosby, captain of the Pittsburgh Penguins. https://t.co/0crzwv29mz #odd
— AP Oddities (@AP_Oddities) December 12, 2017
AP reports that the huge penguin was nearly 5 feet, 10 inches long when swimming, and about 5 foot, 3 inches when standing, because apparently penguins somehow magically grow when they’re swimming.
AP put that in perspective by comparing the animal’s stats to those of Crosby. Official stats on Crosby put him at 5’11”, making him just barely taller than the flightless bird. The penguin actually weighed more than the Pittsburgh forward, coming in at 223 lbs to Crosby’s 220 lbs.
While the animal penguin and human Penguin were remarkably similar in size, the fossil of the penguin is estimated to be just a tad older than the 30-year-old future Hall of Famer. Scientists believe that the remains of the penguin date as far back as 56 to 60 million years.
This isn’t the first time that a massive penguin has been compared to a sports star. The largest penguin ever discovered was a whopping 6 foot 8 and “could have looked basketball superstar LeBron James square in the eyes,” according to Mother Nature Network.
While a penguin the size of Crosby actually sounds a little terrifying, this did show me that Crosby is actually shorter than I thought he was, so that’s cool. Also, Sid’s a diver so maybe he and this penguin are distantly related.
Headline photo: Penguin illustration by Gerald Mayr
