Tag: human impact

From the smallest of bones come the biggest of secrets

Ask any museum curator if you could destroy the only known bone of a diminutive extinct animal for genetic research, and the answer, once the curator had regained their composure…well, I’ll leave that one to your imagination.

Walk into the behind-the-scenes collection at any museum in Aotearoa New Zealand and you’re immediately drawn to the big things, whether that’s historical taxidermy, like imposing carnivores with their glassy eyes that eerily follow you around the room, or the skeletons of marine leviathans that once explored the ocean’s depths. Yet tucked away, dwarfed by the adjacent shelves upon shelves of carefully curated moa drumsticks, is a single non-descript wax-lined box full of tiny treasures. Hundreds of precious fossil gecko bones from before the arrival of humans, some thousands of years old. Continue reading “From the smallest of bones come the biggest of secrets”

Out of the fire and into a mad world: How human arrival in New Zealand resulted in a flightless insect

When most people think of the consequences of humans arriving on an isolated island paradise, it wouldn’t be making an insect flightless.

Most people would think about the rapid extinction of biodiversity and environmental modification that inevitably follows human arrival. In Aotearoa New Zealand this includes the sad loss of the giant megafaunal moa, pouakai Haast’s eagle, and the huia to name a few, as well as the widespread burning of forest. Others will mention the introduction of novel mammalian predators like the kiore Pacific rat, kurī Polynesian dog, and the myriad of sharp-toothed beasties Europeans brought with them. If people even think about the insects, it will be to wonder how many were munched into extinction by rats as they rapidly spread throughout Aotearoa in waves. Continue reading “Out of the fire and into a mad world: How human arrival in New Zealand resulted in a flightless insect”

Fossil Lucky Dip from a Lost World

I’m lying on a beautiful golden sand beach. The bright sun is beating down upon me. I could be on an isolated, tropical island, if not for the lone giant moa sculpture looming above my head.

This sentinel to a lost world stands at the aptly named Old Bones Backpackers at Awamoa, (originally named Te Awa Kōkōmuka), south of Oamaru. It was erected as if to remind us of what was and what we have lost, guarding the remains of its brethren.

Archaeology old school: In the days before four-wheel drive vehicles, “carrying off of the fragments that remained” from Awamoa was no doubt an arduous task, especially just before afternoon tea. Photo courtesy of Alexander Turnbull Library.

Awamoa is a ‘moa hunter’ site where one of New Zealand’s first archaeological excavations, conducted by Walter Mantell, took place in 1852. Today, it’s a far cry from what the area looked like all those years ago, with coastal erosion, the nemesis of archaeologists, attempting to wipe the slate clean.

Suddenly, waves crash around me into our excavation pit, followed by the rhythmic upbeat music of the water receding over pebbles. It breaks me out of the reverie about my curious feathered friend. I’m here on what could only be called an extreme ‘rescue excavation’ before the sea claims any remaining bones for Davy Jones. Continue reading “Fossil Lucky Dip from a Lost World”