Fossil vertebrate taxa

In New Zealand’s lush rainforests, isolated from the outside world for 60-80 million years, many extraordinary birds evolved.  They included the giant moa, the beautiful huia, the largest eagle the earth has ever seen, and tiny flightless wrens.  Within a few hundred years, human settlement extinguished 58 species.  However, research into 16-19 million year old fossil deposits in Otago has shown that in the distant past an even more fascinating and diverse vertebrate fauna existed in Aotearoa/New Zealand, including now extinct mammals, amphibians and reptiles.