A fossil found in Peru back in 2007 is considered to be something from a Hollywood movie rather than found in nature has a been a great discovery concerning creationism. However, despite claims it had shed no light on evolution for one thing, it was found to be tens of million of years out of it’s time frame, secondly, it’s enormous size, thirdly, this remarkable bird was apparently fully penguin with flippers and more tuxedo decor than many modern species. But the most remarkable of all is for the first time there were feathers recovered which still had pigment bodies – melanocytes – with reddish brown coloration remaining in them. Amazing!
In the journal of science…
“Penguin feathers are highly modified in form and function, but there have been no fossils to inform their evolution.”
The discovery of feathers is what surprised evolutionary scientists the most because it is implausible in the real world considering the the assumed age is about 36 million years for them to last that long. A younger fossil (in thousands of years range) would make this plausible to recover feathers in a fossil and indeed that was what had been found. The authors in the journal of science had no viable explanation other than it was a rare find and Penguin feathers are highly modified in form and function, but there have been no fossils to inform their evolution.
“They don’t make penguins like they used to. Thirty-six million years ago, at least one species stood nearly as tall as a man and sported shades of red and gray, scientists announced Thursday.” -National Geographic
So really, how could this shed more light on understanding evolution? Why would a super-penguin which was fitter than modern ones with a “similar structure and organization as those of living birds that have reddish brown and/or grey feathers, including robins and zebra finches” would evolve into something less fit and smaller?
And when you add the recovery of feathers and melanosomes in the fossil considered to be 36 million years old one asks, how does this shed light on evolution? Looking at the artist’s reconstruction (and I’m not a big fan of these), even the drawing shows it was fully equipped with tuxedo wetsuit and outfitted for powerful swimming just as much as we see with today’s penguins. The melanocyte aspect, sighting the differences are very trivial.
There is nothing to show either by observation or understanding in regards to evolution! In creationism, the earth is young so it’s not altering any of it’s time frame nor restoring to a non-viable explanation like just calling the discovery “rare” when it’s possible to find more. Also, it’s a variant of the bird family which is is not contrary to creationism. This is a good example on how the ‘theory’ of evolution gets more complicated and how a viable explanation grows with more confirmation concerning the data. The “Water King” fossil is an enormous and very interesting discovery!