Tag: New Zealand

How to make a flightless bird

Visit any major museum in Aotearoa New Zealand and you will see a giant moa skeleton on display. The first thing you notice, apart from its enormous size, is the complete lack of wing bones. The answer to how the tūpuna of moa arrived on our shores and subsequently lost their wings has been one of New Zealand’s greatest evolutionary mysteries.

Pin the wings on the moa….what wings? The South Island giant moa skeleton in the entrance of Canterbury Museum that so fascinated my five-year-old palaeontologist.

Moa, and our other national bird, the kiwi, are members of an ancient super group of birds called palaeognaths (derived from the Greek for ‘old jaws’, referring to the primitive-looking roof of their mouth), very different to their evolutionary rivals, the neognaths (new jaw) that include all other birds alive today. Continue reading “How to make a flightless bird”

From the mists of time: the enduring mystery of the adzebills

As a kid, I remember visiting Canterbury Museum with my Dad. I was fascinated and terrified in equal measure by the giant moa skeleton in the entrance, just as my four-year-old is today. But what really interested me was the much smaller, but not less diminutive, skeleton of an extinct adzebill.

The adzebills were built like tanks. They sported massive adze-like beaks and skulls. These were in turn supported on a long neck made up of heavily reinforced vertebrae. With very little in the way of wings, these giants walked around on equally robust legs and feet. Continue reading “From the mists of time: the enduring mystery of the adzebills”

Make taxonomy great again

On a dark and stormy Wellington street, Kerry is head down, bum up, searching for an elusive and rather dull looking snail.

Kerry is one of a new breed of up-and-coming scientists that is taking up the mantle of taxonomy (the science of describing and naming new biodiversity) as members of the old guard get closer to imminent retirement. As one of New Zealand’s foremost experts in terrestrial and marine shells, Kerry is at the forefront of a scientific revolution that, as the whole field becomes more interdisciplinary, is seeing the latest genomic techniques and ancient DNA brought to bear on taxonomy.

Just hours earlier, somewhat inebriated, Kerry had been weaving his way home from a night out when he noticed a weird snail (an LBJ or little brown jobbie as it’s known in the field) and thought nothing of it…until later. Now, it’s a scene eerily reminiscent of Gollum feeling around in the dark of the goblin cave for his precious. He needs to find that LBJ; it may be important. Continue reading “Make taxonomy great again”

Through the looking glass: Fossils reveal a Miocene Wonderland at St Bathans

It’s the height of the Central Otago summer – barren, dry and dusty. Driving down the gravel road to St Bathans, we’re travelling back in time, down the rabbit hole to a world long gone. Only ghosts remain of this lost world and that’s what we’ve come here to find. The fossilised bones of a myriad of animals dating back some 16-19 million years from the Miocene period can be found in the sediments of the surrounding area. Continue reading “Through the looking glass: Fossils reveal a Miocene Wonderland at St Bathans”

A tale of two penguins: Bice and Rosie

New Zealand has long been considered the cradle of penguin evolution. But two new fossil discoveries, affectionately known as Bice’s, (pronounced Bee-chee’s), and Rosie’s Penguins, are rewriting early penguin evolution and have taken the world by storm. Move aside Penguins of Madagascar; there are some new and cool kids on the block!

But how did we get to this point and what is Bice’s and Rosie’s tale? Continue reading “A tale of two penguins: Bice and Rosie”

Introducing the Poūwa: New Zealand’s unique and ill-fated black swan 

Step inside a TARDIS and travel to prehistoric New Zealand and the landscape looked very different.

Moa roamed the forests, Haast’s Eagle soared in the sky and you would have met a very tall, heavy and potentially grumpy swan. This is the Poūwa – New Zealand’s newest species discovered by my team (published today in Proceedings B) including collaborators from the Otago Palaeogenetics Laboratory (University of Otago), Canterbury Museum and the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. But how did we get to this point? Continue reading “Introducing the Poūwa: New Zealand’s unique and ill-fated black swan “