March 2022 – Lost Worlds, Vanished Lives

The first snow had started to settle on the bare ground. Soon the shag will have to make a choice.

Should it stay to battle the elements and potentially face death during the long night, or attempt a perilous journey to find a new home? By the time sea-ice surrounds its craggy island, creeping up from the south like an army of white walkers, it may be too late.

*Beware white walkers: Chatham Island shags (L. onslowi) on watch at the refugial Rēkohu Chatham Islands. Photo courtesy of Oscar Thomas.*

Scientists know a lot about how the Ice Age affected animals in the landlocked Northern Hemisphere. Vast kilometre-high ice sheets covered large parts of Eurasia and North America. Animals migrated into refugia and when the ice finally released its cold grip on the world, they expanded back out again. It’s practically the plot of the Ice Age movies. Continue reading “The long night: how the Ice Age drove blue-eyed shag evolution”

“Alan, Alan, Alan, we have a big one”. And sure enough, in front of the kids and me was the brown outline of a bone that hadn’t seen the light of day for millions of years.

It’s big country out here. And baking hot, even this early in the morning. Driving out of Alexandra up the Manuherikia Valley the views are vast, and big, with your eye drawn to the horizon. The sky is that dark blue-black that heralds an impending thunderstorm later in the day. Black clouds stretch in banks across the sky like zebra crossings for the gods. Dotted throughout this brown hill country with its rocky schist tors, are seemingly out-of-place lurid irrigated fields – bright green interlopers in an otherwise dry landscape. The kids and I imagine what this place must have been like when Polynesians arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand with the hillsides covered in kowhai and lancewood forest. The kids can barely contain their excitement about finally being in the field with daddy. Continue reading “Something old, something new: meet St Bathans newest fossil duck”