Penguins of the North (scenario)

["Ken Kinman" <kinman@hotmail.com>]

A possible scenario:
    Haven't had time to follow this thread closely, so forgive any 
repetitiousness.  It seems to me probable that penguins expanded north 
during one or more favorable periods---especially when El Ninos were weak or 
absent.  Great times for penguins.
    Then times get bad.  In most equatorial areas the El Ninos, food 
scarcity, heat prostration take their tolls, and the survivors go south or 
get eaten by predators.
    The only northern survivors of those "good times" are the Galapagos 
penguins, the smallest penguins in the world.  Being small they probably 
need less food, heat prostration would be less of a problem, and a lack of 
predators-----these and other advantages allow the Galapagos penguins to be 
the only modern survivors this far north.  But in spite of these advantages, 
they are endangered due mainly to the  ravages of periodic El Ninos.
    My conclusion is that predators take their toll, but warm weather and 
especially food scarcity are even more to blame for keeping the penguins 
from expanding northwards, even in predator-free environments.
    Prediction:  It could be that we will eventually find penguin fossils 
further north than we might expect, where they may have pushed out or 
co-existed with auks.  Perhaps something to look forward to, but we will 
probably never know just how far north some penguins may have lived at some 
point in the past.
    -----More than 2 cents worth,
          But whose counting?,
                :-)     Ken
******************************************
John Bois wrote:
> My nice story "explains" lack of auks in the south better than lack of 
> penguins in the north.  I wonder if anyone here can hazard an opinion about 
> what's going on further up the coast of Patagonia, Chile, Argentina...and 
> South Africa; in places where there are cold currents but no penguins, and 
> presumably, no auks.

_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.