On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
Today's penguins represent 60 million years of evolution that produced what are arguably the strangest birds of all time. In the November issue of Scientific American, paleontologists Ewan Fordyce of the University of Otago in New Zealand and Daniel Ksepka of North Carolina State University in Raleigh describe recent fossil discoveries that have, at last, allowed scientists to reconstruct the evolutionary history of these endearing creatures—spanning their origin from a flying ancestor to their spread across the Southern Hemisphere into some of the most forbidding environments on Earth. The slide show below highlights a representative sample of modern penguin species. As varied as they are, modern-day penguins represent but a fraction of the group's past diversity.
» View a slide show of some modern-day penguin species.
Subscribe to Support Independent Journalism
Great science journalism requires human expertise, time, effort and creativity. And it costs money. That’s why I and the journalists here at Scientific American hope you’ll join our community.
When you subscribe, you are supporting staff and freelance journalists who are passionate about telling science stories that are true, important and compelling. Our editors and reporters are often experts in their fields, which means they understand the nuances of big discoveries and can untangle the breakthroughs from the hype. With a subscription, you are also supporting rigorous fact-checking to ensure the words we publish are precise and accurate. And you’re supporting original illustrations, graphics and photos that bring you closer to an advanced laboratory, an ice sheet in Antarctica or a space mission in orbit. You’re helping us craft other types of high-quality journalism as well: Our newsletters are carefully written, edited and curated by staffers you have or will come to know and love. Our Science Quickly podcast is based on original reporting, collaboration with editors and scientists and exacting production.
Subscriptions keep this engine running so we can continue to deliver thoughtful, rigorous and independent science journalism to you. In an era of viral misinformation, this work is crucial. If you value what we do, I hope you’ll consider joining us as a subscriber
