The recent discovery of a 25-million-year-old eagle fossil in South Australia gained major media attention, reinforcing the belief of palaeontologist Associate Professor Trevor Worthy that fossil research is a widespread fascination.
What is your role at Flinders University?
I came to Flinders in 2013 to join the fledgling palaeontology group that Professor Gavin Prideaux was assembling. The aim was to create a research focus in Vertebrate palaeontology, a niche that distinguished us from others in Adelaide.
My part was to bring expertise in fossil birds and to lead and develop research for this field in Australia, as it was a largely neglected area of palaeontology. I therefore complimented the expertise of Gavin Prideaux and Dr Aaron Camens (mammals), Professor John Long (fish), and Professor Mike Lee (reptiles) who joined the group later on.
Now I am part of a team of about 30, in which I lead a bird group that includes Jackie Nguyen (DECRA), along with three PhD and two Honours students working on fossil bird projects. I see it as a pivotal role to use my experience in field research and broad interests in how ecology, zoology, geology and geomorphology can converge to create an improved understanding of the fossil biota under study at any one moment, be it mammal, reptilian or avian.
In doing so, I hope to impart in a generation of emerging researchers the values of a broad knowledge base and the importance of research excellence.
What is your research focus?
In short, fossil birds. Birds amount to a huge part of Australia’s vertebrate diversity – about 900 species – which is twice the diversity of mammals. So when and how did Australia acquire its unique avifauna? We’re uniquely placed in South Australia to address this key question, as we have a series of rich fossil deposits in our northern deserts that sample the important Oligocene and Miocene periods, which is the time when much of the modern bird diversity was evolving.
Australia is the origin of the songbird radiation. While the fossil record underpinning this genetic-based conclusion remains to be studied in detail, it does exist. We have had a recent focus on the local giant mihirung birds, strange extinct relatives of chickens and ducks, yet much more remains to be done. Similarly, the fossil history of most bird groups other than waterfowl remain to be developed or explored. When and how did we acquire our unique radiations of parrots and pigeons? What is the history of the land rail group in Australia? These and similar questions are a continuing focus of my work and that of my students.
However, Australia is only a part of the austral world, so I have ongoing interests in the island avifaunas of Oceania, and the more ancient avifaunas of our eastern neighbour New Zealand. New Zealand was once joined to Australia and that island continent, since its rupture from us 80-60 million years ago, has been an evolutionary laboratory presenting a unique contrast to Australia in that birds dominate non-marine vertebrate faunas. How the mix of island isolation, changes in areal extent and climate change modified the avifauna are key ongoing research interests.
What journey brought you to this point in your career?
Events and people early in my life were key drivers of my life path, but at the time they were unappreciated. I had a grandmother who was a keen and renowned amateur shell collector. This fostered my passion in natural history and the value of cataloguing.
In school, I gained an interest in birds through ‘beach patrols’ – not the life saving kind, but rather the collection of dead oceanic birds from the beach to determine the species of birds living offshore. Through this activity, bones captured my attention. University life led to a strange mix of recreation and science with my exposure to fossil bones in caves. Youthful naivety led me to think no scientist would ever study these seemingly remote resources, so I decided to become a palaeontologist. Unemployment and a lateral thinking museum director led to a job in Waitomo Caves Museum collecting fossil bones from caves.
Subsequently, inspiration and support came from the Director of the National Museum of NZ (John Yaldwyn) and one of the leading NZ scientists (Charles Fleming). Thus with a MSc to my name I commenced research in the National Museum of NZ, and then established ‘Palaeofaunal Surveys’ and became a private enterprise. Somehow, I secured funding for 15 years from the Foundation for Research Science and Technology and produced a series of papers describing the Quaternary non-marine vertebrate fossil record of NZ.
Finally, in 2005, the inability of grant funding agencies to realise that research can be done effectively by those without a PhD caught up with me and I came to Australia, became the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA’s first PhD student in Adelaide University, completed less than three years later, and joined the postdoc university world. My first university (Waikato) awarded me a DSc for my pre-PhD work in 2011, and in 2013 I joined Flinders as a DECRA Fellow, then a Vice-Chancellor’s Fellow. I’ve been lucky that I can follow my passion, but much remains to be done – and Flinders has the only researchers addressing this huge field in Australia.
Can you share something you are proud of?
Fundamentally, I’m proud of the overall contribution to knowledge I have been able to make in the understanding of diversity of prehuman vertebrate faunas across Australasia and the Pacific. But recently, I get much satisfaction in leading and inspiring the next generation of researchers to continue the task.
What do you like to do in your spare time?
New Zealand’ s most famous palaeontologist, Sir Charles Fleming, once turned down an invite from me to come on a trip to look at some extraordinary fossil deposits we were documenting. His reason – he had projects to finish, possibly his latest book, or perhaps one of his hundreds of papers. Now, I also find spare time hard to find. Outside of the office, after the necessary communications with colleagues are done, reading a few papers to keep abreast of some aspects of research interests, doing some community service in the form of reviewing manuscripts and editing for a few journals, I tend to watch a movie and take a walk on the beach or in the forest. Every once in a while, I overdose on fieldwork, which is my true escapism.