For the most part, birds are not well represented in fossil records. This holds true for penguins, but some fossil evidence does exist to their prehistoric past. Between 1850 and the early 1900's ancient penguin fossils were unearthed in areas as varied as New Zealand, Australia, South America and the Antarctic. These findings revealed that many ancient penguins were much larger than their contemporary counterparts. One fossil found on Seymore Island stood at nearly six feet and weighed over three hundered pounds! In comparison, the largest penguin today is the Emporer, which stands at about four feet and weighs only sixty five pounds.

Most scientists agree that today's penguins probably evolved from an airborne ancestor about 65 million years ago, and began to evolve into the 18 species we know today 55 million years ago. Interestingly, even though these penguin predecessors date back to the Crestaceous Period, and probably inhabited warmer climates, all of the penguin fossils found so far have turned up in locations that still have local penguin populations. This indicated the incredible age of many penguin rookeries. Of course many questions still remain regarding prehistoric penguins, but these fossils can give us a glimpse into their past.

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