Penguins are one of the most beautiful, unique and interesting birds that exist today. They do not only have interesting ways that amuse us when we see them but they also have a very fascinating history that has kept scientists occupied for years. Initially, there were many evolution theories relating to penguins without any scientific research backing them up but with time many researches were conducted and many fossils were found that made scientists come to a conclusion pertaining to the evolution of penguins.
Penguins are now considered as one of the oldest species of birds existing today. They are considered to be more than 36 million years old and have evolved from birds that used to fly, swim and spend their time on the ground. The evolution theory of penguins tell us that these birds slowly slowly started spending more time in water which became the major cause of their evolvement from flying birds to swimming birds. Scientists believe that there came time when penguins had to swim more than flying to survive and catch their prey and they continued this practice for years. This changed their wings into flippers and their posture became more upright. This whole process didn’t happen in decades, but it took centuries for penguins to evolve. Their body evolvement from flying birds to swimming birds took place gradually and made penguins capable of surviving the changing climatic conditions. There were many species of birds that could not evolve and they became extinct eventually, but penguins did manage to survive and evolve according to their climatic conditions.
Penguins, since the beginning, dwelled in colder regions – some of them were in icy regions whereas some of them were in regions less cold. Nevertheless, they were birds of the cold region and there came a time when they felt the need of surviving through fishes and marine life which compelled them to spend more time in water. This is in particular the most famous theory of evolution relating to penguin of how they changed from flying birds to swimming birds but there is more about penguins that evolved.
Most of the penguins that dwelled in icy regions evolved differently from the others. They evolved into a species of penguins having more layers of fats than the rest, because of their cold environment which made their bodies store more fats and it was a necessity for their survival too.
