New Species of Bird Identified in Central Otago

Australian and New Zealand found a new species of shorebird in Central Otago which links Australian and South American shorebirds. Photo / Supplied

A new species of shorebird found in Central Otago confirms the link between Australian and South American shorebirds. The new species, from a time when New Zealand was almost completely covered in subtropical forests, has been found near St. Bathans in Central Otago.

A team of New Zealand and Australian-based scientists, including researchers from the Canterbury Museum, has confirmed that the 19-16 million-year-old shorebird fossils belong to a group, which had previously been thought to only include the Australian Plains-wanderer and the South American seedsnipes.

The new species has been named Hakawai melvillei, after New Zealand ornithologist David Melville to honour his work in the conservation of migratory shorebirds.

Canterbury Museum researcher and lead author of the study Dr. Vanesa De Pietri says that the team was thrilled to find the fossil shorebird was not a typical wader but had features more like an ancestral Plains-wanderer or seedsnipe, which are unusual shorebirds due to their adaption to living well on land.

"We're happy to have found a fossil bird that provides a key link between the two groups. The discovery of Hakawai melvillei has confirmed our thinking that the ancestors of the Plains-wanderer and seedsnipes were wading birds, like most other shorebirds," she says. "It has also confirmed previous research I've undertaken, with colleagues, that the Plains-wanderer and seedsnipes evolved their terrestrial habits independently."

This finding sheds light on the evolutionary period when South America, Antarctica, Australia, and New Zealand were once part of the southern supercontinent of Gondwana.

Dr. Trevor Worthy, a New Zealander working as Flinders University in South Australia who led the study, says "the discovery of Hakawai melvillei adds to an emerging story of New Zealand's role in the evolution of birds in the Southern Hemisphere. Unfortunately, like crocodiles, turtles, and some tropical birds, which once inhabited New Zealand, the lineage represented by Hakawai melvillei is along gone. We're not sure what happened, by climatic and geographic changes during that time may have been partly responsible for its demise."

The research team has now published their findings in the Journal of Systematic Paleontology.