WELLINGTON, Sept. 1 (Xinhua) -- New Zealand paleontologists have discovered a remarkably intact fossil of one of the earliest ancestors of a group of birds now restricted to the tropics, which indicated the origin of the birds as Zealandia.
Zealandia is a submerged continent in Oceania, and New Zealand is the largest part of Zealandia that is above sea level.
The study was published on Friday in the Australian journal "Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology."
Paul Scofield, senior curator of the Canterbury Museum, said this latest finding demonstrates that the groups of birds, which were once thought to be evolved in the Northern Hemisphere, actually might have evolved in the seas around Zealandia.
The specimen discovered, dubbed as the Zealandian Tropicbird, is the first tropicbird fossil to be found in the Southern Hemisphere, and is believed to be around 62 million years old, making it the most ancient tropicbird species ever described, according to the study.
"The extinction of dinosaurs and other land and aquatic vertebrates 66 million years ago, left vacant a vast array of habitats that birds were able to conquer," said Vanesa de Pietri of the University of Canterbury.
Through all these bird fossils found, researchers discovered Zealandian shores played a key role in the early evolutionary history of many seabirds, said Pietri, an author of the study.
"Worldwide, the fossil record of birds this age is poor, which makes these Canterbury finds so significant in understanding what was happening with birds during the first 5 million years following the extinction of the dinosaurs," she said. ■
