Could Northland offer up more ancient marine mammal discoveries?

Rare discovery: A ichthyosaur fossil embedded inside a boulder was discovered by James Crampton, Professor of Paleontology at Victoria University, and he says it can be viewed as an example of what to look for when fossil hunting. An ichthyosaur fossil was also found in Northland in the 1970s.

A fossilised jaw bone fragment from a 110 million-year-old ichthyosaur- that would have been swimming around during the age of dinosaurs - was discovered near Dargaville in the mid-1970s, so could there be more ancient sea creature or even dinosaur bones lurking in our backyards?

James Crampton, a Professor of Paleontology at Victoria University and author of The Kiwi Fossil Hunter’s Handbook, says the odds of finding dinosaur bones or ancient marine mammal bones are very low, “but it is amazing what a careful look and a keen eye can turn up”.

In fact, Crampton himself discovered the skeleton of an ichthyosaur inside a boulder that was embedded in mudstone in the Clarence river in a remote area of Marlborough during a field trip to the area on an unrelated matter only a few years ago.

However, Crampton said, ”The very small number of ancient marine reptile remains that have been found in New Zealand tells us that they are very rare.”

Research published in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2003 stated that the ichthyosaur jaw fragment discovered in 1974 by a farmer named HR Watkins was the first of its kind to have been found in Northland.

It was also significant because it was the first time a cranial element of an ichthyosaur from the cretaceous period had been found in New Zealand.

If you or your family go fossil frolicking in Northland this summer what should you look for?

“I would be looking at the surfaces of river-washed boulders, looking for patches of rock that are quite different. Fossil bone has a distinctive spongy, porous texture and tends to be brown, often it stands out against the greyer rock.

“When I first found the Marlborough ichthyosaur, I could see the worn, brown cross-sections of bones around the edge of the boulder; if you could see them close-up, you’d see that they have the characteristic porous texture of bone.”

Cramption said that anywhere you can see clean surfaces of water-washed rock outcrops is a good place to search for fossilised dino bones. “In New Zealand, that has to be either the coast or in streams.”

He said there are definitely dinosaur bones waiting to be discovered but he says one of the problems in New Zealand is that we have va low and decreasing number of palaeontologists, “so there are few people looking, which is why amateur palaeontologists have made important discoveries in New Zealand”.

If you find a fossil you think might be from a prehistoric era, you should contact the Auckland Museum in the first instance.

“They have people there who could confirm whether it is a fossil bone,” Crampton said.