For over 20 years Canterbury Museum researchers have joined Australian and New Zealand colleagues on annual trips to fossil sites near St Bathans in Otago to recover the remains of birds, bats, reptiles, frogs and fish. Now, palaeontologists have been excited to find a little bone, they believe to be a humerus or wing bone of what they think might be a new family of birds. It's been named "Zealandornis relictus" and it's believed to have lived between 16 to 19 million years ago on and around a giant lake called Lake Manuherikia. Dr Trevor Worthy from Flinders University, Adelaide is the lead author of the paper describing Zealandornis.
Fossil of Zealandornis relictus Photo: Dr Trevor Worthy
