New Zealand cave fossils reveal a one-million-year island ecosystem
Paleontologists in North Island's Moa Eggshell Cave have uncovered an Early Pleistocene fossil assemblage dating 1.0–1.55 million years ago, including a newly identified parrot related to the kakapo, an ancestor of the takahē, and a pigeon, all preserved in volcanic ash; the discovery fills a gap in New Zealand's vertebrate record and suggests natural upheavals—not humans—shaped the island's biodiversity, with about one-third to half of the species now extinct.