A well-preserved penguin fossil with its feathers and scales has been discovered in Peru.

Paleontologists date the remains to 36 million years ago and have dubbed the ancient penguin "Inkayacu Paracelsus," which means "emperor of the water" in the indigenous language of Quechua.

Head of the University of San Marcos' Museum of Natural History in Lima, paleontologist Rodolfo Salas-Gismondi led the excavations on Paracas desert in 2007.

"We have discovered, for the first time, the skeleton of a fossilised penguin that preserved its feathers and scales - something completely unusual on fossil records."

He says that the discovery sheds new light on the animal's evolution. "We have done studies on this feathers' color, which have indicated that the animal had brown feathers, completely different from the color that current penguins have - which are white feathers on its belly and black ones on its spine."

The ancient version of the marine bird was about 1.5 meters tall and weighed almost 60 kg, dwarfing today's Emperor Penguin, the largest of the modern-day species.

The skeleton was preserved under a protective blanket of sediment, in an anaerobic environment when world temperatures were at their highest.

A young researcher first stumbled upon the remains in 2006, when he was studying the habits of aquatic birds in the Paracas National Reserve, 174 miles south of Lima.