Funny Animals: Cute Baby Penguins

Modern penguins consititute two undisputed clades and another two more basal genera with more ambiguous relationships.[17] The origin of the Spheniscinae lies probably in the latest Paleogene, and geographically it must have been much the same as the general area in which the order evolved: the oceans between the Australia-New Zealand region and the Antarctic.[18] Presumedly diverging from other penguins around 40 mya,[18] it seems that the Spheniscinae were for quite some time limited to their ancestral area, as the well-researched deposits of the Antarctic Peninsula and Patagonia have not yielded Paleogene fossils of the subfamily. Also, the earliest spheniscine lineages are those with the most southern distribution.