#strigopoidea

Family Reunion (C-1)

Some families are more popular than others, you know? It's a miracle there wasn't a submission for ever single corvid that's ever existed. Instead, we have these guys.

Kea (Nestor notabilis)

Island Weirdness #34 — Heracles inexpectatus

New Zealand is probably one of the most famous modern examples of a unique island ecosystem, having been isolated for the last 80 million years. Lacking any living terrestrial mammals, birds instead became the dominant land animals, adapting to a wide range of niches and evolving unusual flightless forms like the modern kiwi and kākāpō.

The St Bathans fossil site on the South Island dates to the early Miocene, about 19 to 16 million years ago, just after a period known as the "Oligocene drowning" when large portions of the landmass were underwater. It gives us a glimpse of an ancient version of New Zealand when the ecosystem was recovering and rapidly diversifying in a then-subtropical climate, and has produced a wide range of new fossil species (including a mysterious mammal).

One of the most recent discoveries from the site is Heracles inexpectatus, a close relative of the modern New Zealand parrots — but significantly larger than any living species, estimated to have stood almost 1m tall (3'3"). Known from just a few leg bones, the fossils were so big that they initially weren't even recognized as belonging to a parrot, instead being mistaken for a large eagle before their true nature was realized.

At such a size it would likely have been flightless, although it may have still been capable of climbing trees and gliding. Much like the modern kea it was probably an omnivore, using its large curved beak and powerful crunching bite to eat pretty much whatever it wanted.

An endangered kea on the Dart Glacier in New Zealand. The world’s only alpine parrot is known for its curiosity

Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Kea (Nestor notabilis)

Fossils of largest parrot ever recorded found in New Zealand | The Guardian

Fossils of the largest parrot ever recorded have been found in New Zealand. Estimated to have weighed about 7kg (1.1st), it would have been more than twice as heavy as the kākāpo, previously the largest known parrot.

Palaeontologists have named the new species Heracles inexpectatus to reflect its unusual size and strength and the unexpected nature of the discovery.

Prof Trevor Worthy of Flinders University in Australia, the lead author of the research published in the journal Biology Letters, said: “Once we decided it was something new and interesting, the challenge was to figure out what family it was from.

“Because no giant parrots have been found previously, parrots were not on our radar – thus it took some time to differentiate all other birds essentially from parrots to conclude that the unique suite of characters was definitive of a parrot.”

Paul Scofield, a senior curator of natural history at Canterbury Museum, said the fossil had been excavated in 2008, and initially the team had thought the bones were part of a giant eagle.

The bones, which will go on display at an exhibition in November, were found in a fossil deposit from the early Miocene epoch, about 19m years ago, near Saint Bathans in Central Otago, New Zealand.

Although the area is now very cold and known for its skiing, Scofield said the climate at the time meant the parrot would have lived near a giant lake in a diverse subtropical forest.

“Back then, it was a subtropical environment quite similar to northern New South Wales, and even had similar vegetation,” Scofield said.

He said the parrot’s weight meant there was a possibility it was flightless. Although the bird’s diet is unknown, Scofield noted most parrots today are vegetarian.