You didn’t watch the video 🤦 Wikipedia is not a superior source to an actual expert. And species are not categorized based on etymology (which wouldn’t work here anyway as some “penguins” have all-black heads).

The video is from a PhD Biologist & Zoologist who has made a ton of content on the joys and challenges of phylogeny, and he clearly has a love for these creatures. It’s worth a watch if you enjoy this stuff.

Yes, Great Auks were the original “penguins” and they lived in the northern hemisphere. He makes the point that those are more closely related to hummingbirds than they are to what we now call penguins. And the modern “false penguins” (to be a bit cheeky), which live almost exclusively in the southern hemisphere, are more closely related to flamingos and other colorful flighted birds than they are to any auks.

So in terms of avian ancestry they are not even very closely related. So yeah, (original) penguins are extinct. Long live (new) penguins!

Terrible News About Penguins

In such trying moments I like to direct my friends to the next logical line of inquiry.

Also, those flightless aquatic birds most people call penguins are not actually that. Penguins are extinct.

“A war” 😅

There’s a national urgent medical line (111)

What? I’ve been lied to. I was told the UK line was 0118 999 881 999 119 725… 3