History and origins of New Zealand’s vertebrates

Te Papa holds the largest collection of fossil vertebrates in Aotearoa. This research examines these fossils, using anatomical observations and DNA, to investigate the evolution of Aotearoa New Zealand’s unique vertebrate fauna. The research ranges from geologically recent events to the deep past.

The current focus is on the impact of humans over the past millennium, the pre-Ice Age vertebrate assemblage of southern Taranaki, Miocene birds, and marine mammals.

Penguin fossil. Photo by Jean-Claude Stahl. Te Papa

Albatross skull fossil. Photo by Jean-Claude Stahl. Te Papa

Ōkārito brown kiwi/rowi. Photo by Alan Tennyson. Te Papa

Main collaborators: Daniel Thomas, Auckland War Memorial Museum; Nic Rawlence, University of Otago; Dan Ksepka, Bruce Museum, USA; Lizzy Steell, University of Cambridge, UK.

Representative publications:

Ksepka, D.T., Tennyson, A.J.D., Richards, M.D., & Fordyce, R.E. (2023). Stem albatrosses wandered far: a new species of Plotornis (Aves, Pan-Diomedeidae) from the earliest Miocene of New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 54(5), 643-659. DOI:10.1080/03036758.2023.2266390

Tennyson, A.J.D., Salvador, R.B., Tomotani, B.M., & Marx, F.G. (2024). A New Diving Pliocene Ardenna Shearwater (Aves: Procellariidae) from New Zealand. Taxonomy, 4(2), 237-249. DOI:10.3390/taxonomy4020012

Rawlence, N.J., Verry, A.J.F., Cole, T.L., Shepherd, L.D., Tennyson, A.J.D., Williams, M., Wood, J.R., & Mitchell, K.J. (2024). Ancient mitogenomes reveal evidence for the Late Miocene dispersal of mergansers to the Southern Hemisphere. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society. DOI:10.1093/zoolinnean/zlae040

Daniel B. Thomas, Alan J.D. Tennyson, Felix G. Marx, and Daniel T. Ksepka "Pliocene fossils support a New Zealand origin for the smallest extant penguins," Journal of Paleontology 97(3), 711-721. DOI:10.1017/jpa.2023.30