9 May 2018

Ancient bones of new pigeon species discovered in Otago

From Morning Report, 8:56 am on 9 May 2018

Scientists have found a new species of a long extinct pigeon in Central Otago, and they've been surprised to discover it appears to have a relative - the equally extinct dodo. But while the dodo disappeared relatively recently - in the late 16-hundreds - the 'Zealandian dove' disappeared imore than 16 million years ago. Te Papa's curator of vertebrates, Alan Tennyson, is one of the researchers who discovered the new species.