Tag: New Zealand

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”

The long night: how the Ice Age drove blue-eyed shag evolution

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”

Something old, something new: meet St Bathans newest fossil duck

“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”

The little frog with a big legacy

In the bowels of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, the little frog waited. In 2005 scientists had released its bones from its sediment tomb on the banks of the Waipara River in North Canterbury.

The discoverers – Bruce Marshall, Phil Maxwell, and Al Mannering – had carefully collected the tiny bones that remained and deposited them in the museum where they were identified as belonging to a frog before they were gently packed away. There the little frog waited like a heirloom toy waiting for the next generation of scientists to rediscover and treasure it.

A few years later the lid was lifted on the little frogs’ new home. Its bones were carefully taken from its box and placed under the microscope. Every bump and groove was described in detail and compared to other frogs from around Aotearoa New Zealand. Continue reading “The little frog with a big legacy”

Resolving a genetic mash-up: reconstructing an accurate evolutionary history of kākāriki

Prioritising species conservation and over-stretched government funding is built upon an accurate understanding of evolutionary relationships and taxonomy. But what if that evolutionary history is wrong?

More importantly, what are the consequences for endangered biodiversity as conservation funding and resources are re-assigned? Numerous examples have come to light in recent years where genetic techniques have shown previously recognised endangered or threatened birds do not exist, such as the Cape Verde kite which was formally considered to be the world’s rarest feathered predator. Continue reading “Resolving a genetic mash-up: reconstructing an accurate evolutionary history of kākāriki”

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”

Land of the chonky birds: How and why did New Zealand have so many feathered giants?

The eastern moa is stuck fast in the swamp, its thick legs having punched through the peat into the liquid blue clay beneath. Death is inevitable, whether from starvation or from above.

Unable to move, the moa can only eat what it can reach around it, if anything. The forests that covered this area during warmer times are but a dim memory in the recesses of time. Instead, the swamp is surrounded by tussock grass and celery pine. Occasionally the moa tries to escape in vain from the swamp’s tight grasp, bumping against the bones of its brethren preserved in this death trap.

Suddenly, something slams into the back of the moa, pushing it further into the swamp. Large talons rip through flesh and bone. The moa’s arch-nemesis, the King of the Eagles, has just arrived for dinner. Continue reading “Land of the chonky birds: How and why did New Zealand have so many feathered giants?”

Climate refugee or hardy local? Solving a botanical mystery

I’m deep in the middle of the Kā Tiritiri o te Moana Southern Alps with Michael Knapp collecting beech leaves and ripping apart rotting logs on the hunt for giant collembola. Some 17 years later, these precious beech samples would allow Michael and I to answer one of the longest-running debates in New Zealand botany.

When Polynesians arrived on that fateful day in Aotearoa New Zealand some 750 years ago, around 80% of the country was covered in large tracts of forest that would have made an Ent proud. However, wind back the clock to the height of the last Ice Age 19,000-29,000 years ago and we enter an alien world. Sea levels were 120 metres lower, connecting the three main islands of New Zealand – you could walk from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland to Ōtepoti Dunedin without having to take the Interisland Ferry across Raukawa Moana Cook Strait. The Lake Taupō super volcano had just erupted burying most of Te Ika-a-Māui North Island under ash, while at the same time the Southern Alps were covered in a vast ice sheet. Forests became climate refugees and retreated to warmer northern areas of both main islands, and White Walkers roamed the land…nope, sorry, that’s Game of Thrones. Continue reading “Climate refugee or hardy local? Solving a botanical mystery”

Aotearoa: Land of the long or short chronology

Lachie Scarsbrook

“See the line where the sky meets the sea? It calls me. And no one knows how far it goes”.

If you’ve seen Disney’s Moana, like me you probably just sung those first few lines whilst picturing a traditional double-hulled canoe sailing out into the sunny, blue abyss.

Discovering new lands: a modern reconstruction of a traditional double-hulled voyaging canoe. FlickrCC.

Sparked from a desire to explore the final frontier, to boldly go where no one has gone before, or driven from Hawaiki as a result of resource depletion, overpopulation or just plain old exile, ancient Polynesian sea voyages were no such fairy-tale. Imagine watching solid-ground fade away into the horizon knowing there’s a good chance you’ll sail into forever, die at the mercy of the Polynesian sea deity Tangaroa and be lost from the knowledge of men. Not surprisingly this notion was missing from Moana. Continue reading “Aotearoa: Land of the long or short chronology”

Footprints illuminate the Dark Age of moa evolution

A moa walks across a vast flood plain, its feet sinking into the soft mud. Once buried by the next flood, the footprints left behind harden. Millions of years later, a farmhand taking the dogs for a swim on a hot day makes the discovery of a lifetime.

Seven footprints, around 25 cm in diameter, were recently discovered in the bed of the Kye Burn River, near Ranfurly, exposed after summer flooding. Such is the importance of this discovery, they represent the first moa trackway for the South Island and potentially the oldest in Aotearoa New Zealand. Thanks to the hard work of Otago Museum and scientists from the University of Otago’s Geology Department, this ara-moa has been saved from being erased from our biological heritage forever.

Continue reading “Footprints illuminate the Dark Age of moa evolution”