You can’t imagine how proud I felt when I read that my old high school classmate Danny (now Danny, Ph.D.) made an amazing discovery after a lifetime of work
with penguins. Kind of amazing, really, because Danny always told me he hated cold weather, and New York City winters.
Anyway, Dr. Danny Ksepska has made the discovery of a lifetime. He’s found flying penguins that actually migrate.
He started his research as an undergrad studying how penguins are modified by evolution into being able to ‘fly’ underwater by having dense and heavy bones designed for negative buoyancy and vestigial feathers, along with a modified wing shape. He apparently investigated the possibility of genetic variance in an isolated penguin population and found that they didn’t develop the dense bones needed for ‘underwater flying’.
Penguin “underwater flying”
Penguin bone (above) regular bird bone below)
In short, he’s found a population of penguins which have only partially evolved those dense bones and still have bones with enough cavernous air spaces to allow flight and the BBC has actually filmed them! Catch the vid here:
Danny, I hope you do see this and the copy I sent you… I’m totally awed at your discovery! Can’t wait for our class’s 50th Reunion!
Just wanted to share this with you all….