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<p> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><span style="font-size:23.0pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#1E9B00">MEDIA ADVISORY</span><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><img width="67" height="201" id="_x0000_i1025" src="cid:b4ee8132-7b10-4b91-b662-7c84a3927276" name="null"><o:p></o:p></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">December 15, 2015<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p><strong> </strong><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;text-autospace:none">
<strong><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">Fossil find leads to new bird species discovery
<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;text-autospace:none">
<strong><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">by Royal BC Museum<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p> <o:p></o:p></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">VICTORIA, BC – </span></strong><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">Not every hike ends in the discovery of a rare 25-million-year-old bird, but for a family in Sooke
that’s exactly what they stumbled upon.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-weight:normal"> </span></strong><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">Now, thanks to Research Associate and bird expert Gary Kaiser, the Royal BC Museum is able to tell the pair exactly
what they discovered and just how extraordinary it is.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">Bird bones are thin and light and therefore do not preserve well. Finding a fossil bird bone is a rare event; the
last fossil bird discovered along the shorelines northwest of Sooke was more than 100 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">A Sooke family out for a walk didn’t realize this when they found a bone in a rock slab that had fallen from the nearby
cliffs. The daughter spotted the fossil, her brother carried the fossil slab off the beach, and their father immediately brought it to the Royal BC Museum to be identified.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">Although the fossils are reminiscent of cormorant bones, Kaiser discovered they actually represent a previously unknown
kind of plotopterid, a long-extinct family of flightless birds. They were diving birds whose wings became flippers, like those of a penguin.
<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">Plotopterid fossils have been found in Japan and the U.S.A. Most were giants, more than two metres long, but this
fossil is from a very much smaller bird.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">“The fossil is a coracoid or collarbone from a bird about the same size as the modern Pelagic Cormorant that lives
in the area today,” said Kaiser. “The family also found two bird leg bones in the same area. The leg bones are difficult to identify but the coracoid has a very distinctive and unusual shape which is not at all like that of a cormorant.”<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">With the assistance of colleague Junya Watanabe from Kyoto University, Japan, Kaiser named the bird
<i>Stemec suntokum</i>. The name means ‘long-necked waterbird’ in the language of the T’Sou-Ke First Nations people.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">The fossil is now in the Royal BC Museum’s fossil collections and a new paper by Kaiser, Watanabe and Royal BC Museum
Palaeontology Collections Manager Marji Johns has been published in Palaeontologia Electronica announcing the species.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">“It’s extraordinary to think this bird bone survived predation, burial, earthquakes, plate tectonics, heating, alteration,
potential dissolution, uplift and weathering,” said Johns, “and that after 25 million years it was found by these amateur collectors.”<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">Plotopterids died out shortly after the time of this fossil. The waters and temperatures of the North Pacific had
changed and food may have become scarce for diving birds. At about the same time, modern sea lions and fur seals moved into the North Pacific. They may have preyed on plotopterids or competed with them for food and haul-out sites.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right:-12.0pt;text-autospace:none"><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal"><o:p> </o:p></span></strong></p>
<p><strong><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55";font-weight:normal">Fossils are considered to be British Columbia heritage items. Collection of fossils should be done conservatively (if at all), keeping in mind the risk of loss or damage at the site
and land ownership. The safest method is typically to photograph the fossil and report it to a museum or science institution. For more information about fossil collecting in British Columbia visit:
<a href="http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/natural-resource-use/land-use/fossil-management">
http://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/industry/natural-resource-use/land-use/fossil-management</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></strong></p>
<p><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><b><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">About the Royal BC Museum<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="xbodytext" style="margin-top:.1pt;background:white"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">The Royal BC Museum explores the province’s human history and natural history, advances new knowledge and understanding
of BC, and provides a dynamic forum for discussion and a place for reflection. The museum and archives celebrate culture and history, telling the stories of BC in ways that enlighten, stimulate and inspire. Looking to the future, the Royal BC Museum will be
a refreshed, modern museum, extending its reach far beyond Victoria as a world-class cultural venue and repository of digital treasures.
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><span style="color:black"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" align="center" style="text-align:center;background:white"><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">- 30 -<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p><strong> </strong><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><b><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">Media contact:</span></b><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55""><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">Royal BC Museum Media Inquiries
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">250-387-3207<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><a href="mailto:news@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca"><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">news@royalbcmuseum.bc.ca</span></a><span class="MsoHyperlink"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="background:white"><img border="0" width="19" height="16" id="Picture_x0020_2" src="cid:image003.png@01D13720.672DF000" alt="Twitter_logo_blue"><a href="https://twitter.com/RoyalBCMuseum"><span style="font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55"">@RoyalBCMuseum</span></a><span style="font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Univers LT Pro 55""><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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