OM Friends – In Focus

An Association of Friends of the Otago Museum Talk

Penguins are an iconic and important part of New Zealand's bird assemblage, but did you know that they also have a long prehistoric record in New Zealand?

Bring your lunch and hear from Marcus Richards, University of Otago Department of Geology, as he discusses how the Otago region is a treasure trove for paleontologists wanting to understand the evolution of these wing-propelled divers, and conveniently there are modern species living on the coast allowing easy comparison.

Otago Museum holds some of the earliest collections made of near-complete skeletons of these ancient waterbirds. Revisiting these fossils collected a century ago, and in the recent wave of paleo-penguin research, we are learning so much more about the last 60 million years of this marine predator's lineage.

Marcus Richards was a previous recipient of the Otago Museum Taxonomy Fellowship fund for his work on penguin fossils.

12.15pm, Tuesday 18 August
Friends' Room, Third Floor
Free admission