Lake Poukawa

BW

Fossil site in the middle of a bog

Poukawa Lake is a small, shallow lake in the region of Hawke 's Bay on New Zealand's North Island. The lake is located 20 kilometers south-west of Hastings and 150 kilometers southeast of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, an area with strong volcanic activity. It is the largest lake within a bog in the Poukawa sink. The maximum depth of the lake is less than a meter and its diameter comprises about 1.5 kilometers. The lake had at the beginning of the 20th century a water depth of about 2.5 meters. However, the water level fell from artificially, after 1931, a major earthquake occurred in this region.

Lake Poukawa is one of the most famous fossil sites in New Zealand. In 1956, the paleontologist Russel Price with excavations in the lake deposits. Lake Poukana pointed particularly in the Pleistocene and the Holocene on a rich variety of waterfowl fauna. Since 1956 have been excavated more than 13,400 bones of ducks birds here. The now extinct taxa that have been found at Lake Poukawa include the New Zealand cloth duck ( Biziura delautouri ) Oxyura vantetsi, the Aucklandsäger ( Mergus australis), the Finsch duck ( Chenonetta finschi ), the Moa - type Pachyornis geranoides, the black-backed - Little Bittern ( Ixobrychus novaezelandiae ), the New Zealand cesspool chicken ( Gallinula hodgenorum ), the New Zealand coot (Fulica prisca ), Malacorhynchus Scarletti, the Eyles - Harrier (Circus eylesi ) and the North Island giant goose ( Cnemiornis gracilis ).

Twelve miles south of Lake Poukawa is the swamp of Te Aute, which is known for its Moa fossils and footprints.