Area notebooks lately recovered from a late paleontologist have offered the essential lacking particulars researchers wanted to finish a research of a outstanding fossil fish found almost three many years in the past.
The story started in 1999 when Dr. Richard Köhler uncovered the fossil throughout a analysis expedition to Pitt Island within the Chatham Islands.
Whereas exploring the island’s western shoreline above Waihere Bay, Köhler noticed a three-dimensionally preserved, mummified fish fossil embedded in a steep part of cliff that was virtually unimaginable to succeed in.
To get well it, he walked 3km again to his lodging in Flowerpot Bay to borrow a ladder. He then returned to the positioning and punctiliously extracted the fossil in a number of giant, extraordinarily heavy blocks.
As soon as again in Dunedin, Köhler introduced the specimen to the College of Otago’s Division of Geology. Emeritus Professor Daphne Lee remembers that she and the late Professor Ewan Fordyce instantly acknowledged its significance.
“It was fairly not like every other fish fossil recognized from Aotearoa, New Zealand,” Daphne says.
Exceptional Historical Predator Recognized
The fossil was painstakingly ready by the late fossil preparator Andrew Grebneff and remained within the Division’s assortment for a number of years. Ultimately, it attracted the eye of Professor Mike Gottfried, a fossil fish specialist from Michigan State College.
Mike had beforehand collaborated with Ewan on a number of research involving fossil fishes and sharks from New Zealand, and he quickly started investigating the weird specimen.
Researchers decided that the 1.2m lengthy mummified fish was a tarpon, a species now not present in New Zealand waters.
Trendy tarpon are giant predatory fish that usually swallow smaller fish entire. The fossil’s anatomy suggests it lived in a lot the identical method. Its elongated physique, thick inflexible scales, highly effective tail fin, and huge upward-facing mouth all level to an energetic predator close to the highest of the meals chain.
Lacking Info Delays Analysis
Regardless of the significance of the fossil, researchers confronted a serious impediment.
Important geological details about the precise discovery website was lacking, and Richard had handed away a number of years earlier.
By the point Ewan died in November 2023, a draft scientific paper had already been ready. Nonetheless, work on the research couldn’t transfer ahead as a result of researchers lacked the detailed area data wanted to correctly doc the place and the way the fossil had been discovered.
The breakthrough got here in early 2025 when considered one of Richard’s youngsters, who was finding out at Otago, visited the Division hoping to find images of his father.
After assembly with Daphne, Richard’s household determined to donate his area notebooks, together with these from the unique Pitt Island expedition.
“This enabled us to get sufficient particular locality data to arrange a Fossil File Type and to scientifically catalogue the fossil,” Daphne says.
New Fossil Species Named
The finished research was lately printed within the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics.
Based on the researchers, it represents the primary report of a high-in-the-food-chain pursuit predatory bony fish from rocks of Paleogene age (round 55 million years in the past) in Aotearoa.
The fossil was given the identify Ikawaihere koehleri in honor of Richard Köhler and the placement the place it was found. The authors additionally thanked Heidi Lanauze and the Hokotehi Moriori Belief for approving the identify.
Mike says it was a privilege to work on the “outstanding fossil.”
“It vastly expands our information of the evolutionary historical past of tarpons, and it preserves distinctive and weird options in beautiful 3D element,” he says.
“It’s definitely among the many most necessary and spectacular fossils recovered to this point from Aotearoa, New Zealand.”
Daphne says she is delighted that the research has lastly reached completion.
“It’s a becoming tribute to Richard, Ewan and Andrew. We’re extraordinarily grateful to Richard’s household for donating his notebooks — we couldn’t have completed this with out them.”
