It was an early offshoot within that particular group.”įlinders University vertebrate palaeontologist Associate Professor Trevor Worthy – who has extensively worked the St Bathans site in NZ, says the diversity of endemic pigeons in New Zealand some 19 to 16 million years ago included “at least two distinct co-existing lineages in the southern part of Zealandia, taking advantage of the more diverse fruiting trees then available”. As a result we can now confirm that the St Bathans Pigeon is also closely related to Indonesian and Melanesian mountain pigeons. “We have now also found a leg bone that we can attribute to this species. “Some years ago we described the St Bathans Pigeon, which we believe is a relative of New Zealand’s two living native pigeons and to the Australian Topknot Pigeon,” says Dr Paul Scofield, also from Canterbury Museum. The Zealandian Dove is the second pigeon found at the fossil-rich St Bathans site near Central Otago. Most of Zealandia is submerged, but it rises above water in places, including the populated areas of New Zealand, New Caledonia, Norfolk and the Lord Howe Island group. Zealandia, also known as the New Zealand continent or Tasmantis, is a mass of continental crust that sank after breaking away from Australia 60-85 million years ago, having begun to separate from Antarctica and the rest of the Gondwana supercontinent. “The Zealandian Dove is the first record of this group found in the southern part of the nearly submerged land mass known as Zealandia,” Dr Pietri says. It is probably most similar to the Nicobar Pigeon and is therefore a close relative (or at least a cousin) of the famous dodo”, says lead author Dr Vanesa De Pietri, from Canterbury Museum.

“Based on the St Bathans fossils, we think that the Zealandian Dove is part of this Indo-Pacific group. The dodo ( Raphus cucullatus) is an extinct flightless bird that was endemic to the island of Mauritius, east of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The closest living relative of the dodo is the Nicobar Pigeon. The latter is the closest living relative of the extinct dodo and the extinct flightless solitaire from the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean.

One of the wing bones is very similar to members of a group that includes the Tooth-billed Pigeon (found only in Samoa), the crowned pigeons of New Guinea, and the Nicobar Pigeon (Southeast Asia). The Zealandian Dove, Deliaphaps zealandiensis, is named after the continent of Zealandia and has been identified from a few fossil bones of the wing and pectoral girdle found at a Central Otago fossil site near St Bathan over the past 16 years. In a paper published in Paleontología Y Evolución de las Aves, researchers from Canterbury Museum, Flinders University, the Museum of NZ Te Papa Tongarewa, and University of NSW, describe a new species from the pigeon and dove family, Columbidae, which lived in the South Island some 19-16 million years ago.

New Zealand only has two named species of native pigeons, the New Zealand Pigeon and the closely-related Chatham Island Pigeon. The Southeast Asian Nicobar pigeon is considered the closest living relative of the extinct flightless dodo (Raphus cucullatus).Ī new pigeon species, the Zealandian Dove, which is related to the extinct dodo, has been identified by Australian and NZ researchers.

Dodo still alive