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Dinosaur dreaming

12 March 2008

A team of Monash scientists, led by palaeontologist, Dr Jeffrey Stilwell, has unearthed one of New Zealand's oldest and most spectacular fossil deposits.

A team of Monash scientists has unearthed one of New Zealand's oldest and most spectacular fossil deposits, a collection of perfectly preserved bird bones thought to be about 65 million years old.

The scientists, lead by Monash palaeontologist Dr Jeffrey Stilwell, stumbled upon the historic find during a National Geographic-funded fossil-hunting expedition to the Chatham Islands, a group of 10 islets east of New Zealand famed for their unique flora and fauna.

While this newest deposit contains well-preserved bones of seabirds, dinosaurs and marine reptiles living during the Cretaceous (around the time New Zealand separated from the super-continent Gondwana), it is the seabird bones that most interest scientists.

Traditionally, bird bones are too small and fragile to last, however the bones in this deposit have somehow survived completely intact, giving palaeontologists and ornithologists a rare peek into the past.

"This find is quite spectacular and it's up there with the finding of the first dinosaur bones on the Chathams,'' said Stilwell, who is based at Monash Clayton.

"In fact, it is equally significant because dinosaur bones preserve easily, but bird bones don't preserve too well because they're so fragile. Also, we don't know too much about the early life of modern birds."

Stilwell says the collection contains bones from four species of seabirds, some thought to be up to one metre tall.

While the bones appear to resemble those of cormorants, Stilwell believes they belong to several unidentified species.

Similarly, the discovery of tracts of other "mystery" fossils, including a giant toe bone from a giant eight-metre tall carnivorous dinosaur, suggests the area, which is now largely seabed, was once a rich eco-system in which seabirds co-mingled with marine and terrestrial dinosaurs.

Stilwell says it also suggests land bridges may have once existed between mainland New Zealand and the Chathams.