WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Researchers studying a rare and endangered species of penguin have uncovered a previously unknown species that disappeared about 500 years ago.
The research suggests that the first humans in New Zealand hunted the newly found Waitaha penguin to extinction by 1500, about 250 years after the humans’ arrival on the islands. But the loss of the Waitaha allowed another kind of penguin to thrive — the yellow-eyed species, at right, which now also faces extinction, Philip Seddon of Otago University, a co-author of the study, said Wednesday. The team was testing DNA from bones of yellow-eyed penguins for genetic changes associated with human settlement when it found bones that were older and had different DNA. The findings appear in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The Associated Press
