Monday, 22 July 2019 02:52
Hands off our kiwi
It could have lived here for 60 million years!
Those Aussies are trying to steal our things again!
Those Aussies are trying to steal our things again!
There have been claims that the Kiwi actually originated in Australia.
To make it even trickier it was a New Zealander, Trevor Worthy who’s involved with research at Flinders University in Adelaide, who put this theory forward. Four years ago he discovered a fossil at St Bathans in Central Otago, and he says the DNA shows the kiwi are related to the emu. Not the moa as had previously been supposed as the common ancestor.
However Department of Conservation bird expert Hugh Robertson said that for more than a decade established thinking was the kiwi was closely related to the emu. But that did not mean it had flown here.
He said it could have been in New Zealand since the land split from Gondwanaland about 60 million years ago.