Scientists explore an island cave and find 1-million-year-old remains of a lost world

Here’s what you’ll learn as you read this story:

• A New Zealand cave has unearthed fossils dating back millions of years, including 12 ancient bird species and four frog species.

• Experts believe the discovery shows how rapidly New Zealand’s forest culture has changed.

• Researchers say 50 percent of species on Aotearoa’s North Island were extinct before humans arrived.

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An amazing trove of fossils found in a cave on New Zealand’s North Island has given scientists their first glimpse of an ancient forest species that lived there a million years ago. The fossils represent 12 ancient bird species and four frog species, including many previously unknown bird species. Taken together, the fossils paint a picture of an ancient world that looked very different than it does today. The discovery also fills an important gap in scientific understanding of extinction patterns prior to human arrival in New Zealand 750 years ago.

The team has published a study about this finding Australian..

“This is a newly recognized avifauna for New Zealand, which was replaced by humans over a million years ago,” Trevor Worthy, lead study author and associate professor at Flinders University, said in a statement. “This remarkable discovery suggests that our ancient forests were once home to a diverse group of birds that did not survive for another million years.”

The team found the fossils between two layers of volcanic ash preserved in the cave, each from a different major eruption, the first 1.55 million years ago and the second 1 million years ago. Many of the species represented in the fossils were already extinct by the time humans arrived on the island. By extrapolation, the research team estimates that between 33 and 50 percent of all species on the island went extinct in the million years before humans arrived in New Zealand, likely thanks to rapid climate change and cataclysmic volcanic eruptions, said Paul Schofield, study co-author and Canterbury Museum senior curator.

Worthy said that “For decades, the extinction of New Zealand’s birds was seen primarily through the lens of human arrivals 750 years ago. This study proves that natural forces such as super-volcanism and dramatic climate change sculpted the unique identity of our wildlife millions of years ago.”

Of all the discoveries, scientists may be most surprised to discover a new species of parrot, Strigops insulaborealisAn ancient relative of the iconic kakapo, a large flightless parrot known for its heft. The team believes that this ancestor may have had the ability to fly. By analyzing the fossil record, the team noticed that the ancient bird had weaker legs than its modern relative, suggesting that the ancestor was not as adept a climber as the modern-day kakapo. Still, the team said more research is needed to confirm that this ancient bird can fly.

The researchers also discovered an ancestor of the modern takahe, which opens up further research into that bird. Fossils of an extinct species of pigeon closely related to the Australian bronze pigeon also excited experts.

“Forest and scrub habitats have forced bird populations to recover,” Schofield said. “We believe this was a major driver for the evolutionary diversification of birds and other fauna in the North Island.”

Schofield said that previous excavations had shown life in New Zealand between 20 and 16 million years ago, and in contrast, the new discoveries provide the first evidence of life between 15 million years ago and one million years ago. “It wasn’t a lost chapter in New Zealand’s ancient history,” Schofield said, “it was a lost volume.”

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