Matuku otagoense, also referred to as the Saint Bathans heron, is an extinct genus and species of heron from the Early Miocene of New Zealand. It was described from fossil material collected in 2007 from the Saint Bathans fauna of the Bannockburn Formation in Otago, South Island. It was a contemporary of the much smaller Saint Bathans bittern, remains of which have been found in the same sediments.[1] The genus name matuku is a Māori-language word meaning “heron” or "bittern". The specific epithet is a latinisation of the name of the Otago region where the descriptive material was collected.[2]
| Matuku otagoense Temporal range: Early Miocene
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Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Order: | Pelecaniformes |
| Family: | Ardeidae |
| Genus: | †Matuku Scofield et al., 2010 |
| Species: | †M. otagoense
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| Binomial name | |
| †Matuku otagoense Scofield et al., 2010
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References
edit- ^ Worthy TH, Worthy JP, Tennyson AJ, Scofield RP (2013). "A bittern (Aves: Ardeidae) from the early Miocene of New Zealand". Paleontological Journal. 47 (11): 1331–1343. Bibcode:2013PalJ...47.1331W. doi:10.1134/S0031030113110154. hdl:2328/35957. S2CID 85257680.
- ^ Scofield, R. Paul; Worthy, Trevor H. & Tennyson, Alan J.D. (2010). W.E. Boles & T.H. Worthy. (eds.). A heron (Aves: Ardeidae) from the Early Miocene St Bathans Fauna of southern New Zealand (PDF). Proceedings of the VII International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution. Records of the Australian Museum. Vol. 62, no. 1. pp. 89–104. doi:10.3853/j.0067-1975.62.2010.1542.
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