In the public sphere, the more ‘flashy’ parts of palaeontology tend to get all the press – excavating fossils in exotic locations and publishing new scientific discoveries. But equally important is how the fossils are cared for, so they are available for research and display, both now and long into the future.Read more

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Two people are standing in a carved out ditch that surrounds a piece of earth they are digging carefully on.

Welcome to a blog series that introduces places, people, methods, and species that are important to palaeontological research at Te Papa and beyond. Curators Felix Marx and Alan Tennyson, along with researchers William Baker and Collection Manager Hazel Richards, start us off with a summary of what palaeontology is and how it works…Read more

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In 2011, Alastair Johnson was hunting for fossils on a remote beach in Taranaki. Three-million-year-old fossil oysters and scallops are common but remains of vertebrates are much rarer. However, on this occasion, something magical appeared out of the rock – the most complete fossil albatross skull ever found. Curator of vertebrates Alan Tennyson tells us more.Read more

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Alan Cooper holds a giant elephant bird leg bone in front of a kiwi skeleton for media as Alan Tennyson looks on. Photo: Jean-Claude Stahl © Te Papa

A study published in the journal Science today reveals a new and unexpected origin for New Zealand’s iconic kiwi and overturns the previous idea that the ancestors of kiwi flew directly over from Australia (see Miocene fossils show that Kiwi are probably not phyletic dwarves, Paleornithological Research 2013, and St Bathan’sRead more

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A speargrass weevil (Lyperobius clarkei) on an on the speargrass Aciphylla ferox speargrass.

As well as impressive plants, Mount Owen and the Marino Mountains are also zoologically interesting. The wet weather may have prevented us reaching the summit of Mount Owen but it did bring out the slugs and snails. We spotted a giant leaf-veined slug (Amphikonophora gigantea) beside the track on theRead more

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Early Miocene mosquito from the Dominican Republic. Photo by Didier Desouens.

I first saw the movie Jurassic Park as a high school student when it was released 20 years ago.  At the time it led to a sudden rise in the number of children obsessed with dinosaurs and wanting to be palaeontologists.  But for me it was all about the scientists workingRead more

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By Chris Paulin and Alan Tennyson Recently, a group of researchers in New Zealand suggested that the absence of fossils between 25 and 22 million years ago indicated that the islands completely disappeared under water, and then later re-emerged. But a newly discovered fossil reptile suggests this theory does notRead more

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