Not ALL penguins like the cold. No, some of them prefer to waddle about where it's a bit warmer. Places near the equator like the Galapagos islands, for instance. And for that, they've got their ancestors to thank.

Fossilised remains of two penguins were found a couple of years back in Peru... the answer to today's geo quiz.

Penguins still live there. But the penguins we're talking about were really ancient, one was 42 million years old.

That meant that penguins had made their way from the south pole to equatorial regions 30 million years earlier than previously thought. Scientists had operated on the theory that some penguins had left Antarctica in search of warmer climes. But here's the thing, back then what is today Peru wasn't all that much warmer than Antarctica.

Clarke: "42 million years ago, Antarctica wasn't, you know, the icy climes that we have today."

Paleontologist Julia Clarke at North Carolina State University says it was even a little tropical. So why did the penguins pack up and head north? Clarke says we don't know.

Clarke: "But we do know that there's this sort of proto upwelling off the Peru coast during this time. And perhaps it was these nutrient rich waters, supporting an abundance of fish life, that might have been one motivation."

Or it could have been the music. Whatever, these penguins pitched up in Peru. And they were big. One of the two species is believed to be the 3rd largest penguin in the history of all penguins. It's called Icadyptes. It stood almost 5 foot tall. And Julia Clarke says it had a long, sturdy beak.

Clarke: "It appear almost spear-like in its construction and it's quite dissimilar in a lot of its details to any living penguin."

Frankly the thought of a tropical penguin standing five-feet tall and brandishing its spear-like beak is a bit disconcerting.

I prefer my penguins short, and on ice.