Matuku otagoense, also referred to as the Saint Bathans heron, is an extinct genus and species of heron from the Early Miocene of New Zealand. It was described from fossil material collected in 2007 from the Saint Bathans fauna of the Bannockburn Formation in Otago, South Island. It was a contemporary of the much smaller Saint Bathans bittern, remains of which have been found in the same sediments.[1] The genus name matuku is a Māori-language word meaning “heron” or "bittern". The specific epithet is a latinisation of the name of the Otago region where the descriptive material was collected.[2]
| Matuku otagoense Temporal range: Early Miocene | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Pelecaniformes |
| Family: | Ardeidae |
| Genus: | †Matuku Scofield et al., 2010 |
| Species: | †M. otagoense |
| Binomial name | |
| †Matuku otagoense Scofield et al., 2010 | |
References
Wikiwand in your browser!
Seamless Wikipedia browsing. On steroids.
Every time you click a link to Wikipedia, Wiktionary or Wikiquote in your browser's search results, it will show the modern Wikiwand interface.
Wikiwand extension is a five stars, simple, with minimum permission required to keep your browsing private, safe and transparent.
