Terrestrial palynomorphs from the glaciomarine Pagodroma Group provide the first stratigraphically-constrained record of Cenozoic terrestrial vegetation for the northern Prince Charles Mountains, East Antarctica. In general, contemporaneous spores and pollen are extremely sparse, but palynological assemblages of the late middle–late Miocene Fisher Bench Formation and Battye Glacier Formation have relatively more abundant Cenozoic spores and pollen compared with those of the Oligocene Mount Johnston Formation and the Pliocene–early Pleistocene Bardin Bluffs Formation. Spore-pollen assemblages from the Battye Glacier Formation and the Fisher Bench Formation are dominated by Chenopodipollis, with a few other accessory angiosperm and podocarp pollen, pteridophyte and bryophyte spores, and algal cysts, reflecting a low diversity herb-tundra vegetation and a climate similar to the present-day cool to cold sub-Antarctic regions. Reworked Permian–Triassic miospores in Amery oasis (unofficial name) sediments probably indicate local provenance from the Amery Group but Jurassic–Cretaceous and possible early Cenozoic miospores reflect an unknown source.

This paper presents the first fossil penguin from East Antarctica, and the only one known south of the Antarctic Circle. It is represented by two well-preserved elements of the wing skeleton, humerus and radius, obviously assignable to the extant genus Spheniscus. They were found in the glaciomarine succession of the Fisher Bench Formation (Fisher Massif, Prince Charles Mountains, Mac. Robertson Land), which was dated using Strontium Isotope Stratigraphy to be Late Miocene in age (10.2 Ma). They are only slightly younger than the oldest remains undoubtedly attributable to this taxon. The X-ray diffraction and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy indicate diagenetic alteration of the original bone bioapatite under dominantly marine conditions. The Late Miocene was a period of ice margin retreat and marine incursion into the Lambert embayment that followed Middle Miocene cooling of the Antarctic climate. The fossils strongly suggest that variable climatic and environmental conditions in East Antarctica may have been an important factor in the evolution of penguins there during the Neogene.