Moa bone fragments found
Roger Buckingham’s childhood fascination with unearthing moa bones has been reignited with a discovery at a limestone quarry he manages near Geraldine.
Buckingham, site manager of Ravensdown’s Kakahu limestone quarry, and his team stumbled upon moa bone fragments last week and called in the help of South Canterbury Museum staff to excavate and identify them.
‘‘We were just clearing out an area we hadn’t been for a long time. We were going to do a bit of a blast there to remove debris, but found a few bones on the surface,’’ he said.
‘‘I’ve heard moa bones have been found in the region so I’ve always had my eye out.’’
Buckingham was keen to find out what species of moa they had discovered, and display the bones and information in a case at the quarry.
‘‘It’s a pretty cool find and we’re just really, really excited about what they are,’’ he said.
‘‘We do find a lot of fossils in the limestone itself but mainly big, big seashells.’’
Buckingham is not green to unearthing moa bones. While growing up, he and a few friends found some in a swamp ‘‘out the back of Palmerston’’ and he had been interested in them ever since.
South Canterbury Museum director Philip Howe said the bones were mainly fragments, apart from a complete toe bone. It is likely they belonged to one or more small to medium-sized moa,.
‘‘It’s not easy because they’re partial bits and pieces rather than complete bones, so we are comparing them to what we have at the museum to find a match.’’
It was ‘‘not surprising’’ to Howe bones were found there as crevices and pits in limestone areas were ‘‘natural traps for flightless birds’’.