The Hunter Island penguin is the former common name given to a number of subfossil penguin remains found in a Holocene Aboriginal midden at Stockyard Site on Hunter Island, in Bass Strait 5 km off the western end of the north coast of Tasmania, Australia.[1] The remains were estimated by radiocarbon dating to be about 760 ± 70 years old and were used as basis to describe a new genus and species, Tasidyptes hunteri.
| Hunter Island penguin Temporal range:
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|---|---|
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Sphenisciformes |
| Family: | Spheniscidae |
| Genus: | †Tasidyptes Van Tets & O’Connor, 1983 |
| Type species | |
| Tasidyptes hunteri van Tets & O’Connor, 1983
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The validity of the taxon was questioned because of the fragmentary nature of the fossils, the lack of distinguishability of some of them from the genus Eudyptes, and their origin in different stratigraphic layers of the midden.[2] Subsequent DNA testing showed that the bones belonged to three different penguin species, all of them extant: the Fiordland crested penguin, Snares crested penguin, and fairy penguin.[3] As a result, Tasidyptes hunteri is an invalid name.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Tets, GF van; O'Connor, S (1983). "The Hunter Island Penguin; An Extinct New Genus and Species from a Tasmanian Midden". Records of the Queen Victoria Museum. 81: 1–13.
- ^ Park, Travis; Fitzgerald, Erich MD (2012). "A Review of Australian Fossil Penguins (Aves: Sphenisciformes)" (PDF). Memoirs of Museum Victoria. 69: 309–325. doi:10.24199/j.mmv.2012.69.06. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 7, 2013.
- ^ Theresa L Cole, Jonathan M Waters, Lara D Shepherd, Nicolas J Rawlence, Leo Joseph, Jamie R Wood; Ancient DNA reveals that the ‘extinct’ Hunter Island penguin (Tasidyptes hunteri) is not a distinct taxon. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, zlx043, https://doi.org/10.1093/zoolinnean/zlx043