The discovery of a tiny foot bone millions of years old reveals Aotearoa New Zealand was once home to a songbird species with potentially unique courtship behaviours, new research shows.
These days bowerbirds are only found in Australia and New Guinea but an international collaboration by the University of Otago – Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and the University of Cambridge shows they may have resided in Aotearoa 14-19 million years ago.
The foot bone that was found in the St Bathans, Central Otago, fossil deposits bore a close similarity to bowerbirds, though belonged to a bird that was much smaller than living species.
Co-author Associate Professor Nic Rawlence, Director of the Otago Palaeogenetics Laboratory, says this discovery provides a "wonderful and unique" insight into the biological history of Aotearoa birds.
"To many people in the world, bowerbirds were made famous by Sir David Attenborough's nature documentaries and their elaborate courtship behaviours, where males construct an arched structure called a bower, decorated with sticks and sometimes brightly coloured objects like fruit, leaves or even pieces of plastic, all in an effort to attract a mate," he says.
