Field notebooks from the late Richard Köhler allowed researchers to finally catalog a remarkable fossil tarpon from Aotearoa New Zealand.
Recently disclosed notebooks from a late paleontologist supplied the missing details researchers needed to complete their study of a “remarkable” fossil found nearly 30 years ago.
Dr. Richard Köhler discovered the fossil fish in 1999 during a research trip to Pitt Island in the Chatham Islands.
Richard spotted the mummified fossil, preserved in three dimensions, in a cliff section above Waihere Bay on the island’s western coast that was extremely difficult to reach.
He then walked 3km back to where he was staying in Flowerpot Bay to borrow a ladder before returning to the site and carefully removing the fossil in several large, very heavy blocks.
After bringing it back to Dunedin, he delivered the fossil to the University of Otago’s Department of Geology, where Emeritus Professor Daphne Lee says she and the late Professor Ewan Fordyce were “suitably impressed” by what he had found.
“It was quite unlike any other fish fossil known from Aotearoa New Zealand,” Daphne says.
The fossil was carefully prepared by the late preparator Andrew Grebneff and kept in the Department until it drew the attention of Professor Mike Gottfried, a fossil fish specialist from Michigan State University, several years later.
Mike, who had previously coauthored several papers with Ewan on fossil fishes and sharks from New Zealand, began investigating the specimen.
An ancient tarpon emerges
The mummified fossil, measuring 1.2m long, was identified as a tarpon, a type of fish that no longer lives in New Zealand waters. Modern tarpon are large, strong predators that usually swallow smaller fish whole.
The fossil’s long, powerful body, thick rigid scales, well-developed tail fin, and large upward-facing mouth indicate that it likely lived in a similar way.
However, researchers were missing important geological details about the exact place where the fossil had been found, because Richard had died several years earlier.
When Ewan died in November 2023, a draft of the research paper already existed, but work had stalled because the team lacked detailed information about the fossil’s discovery.
Notebooks restored the evidence
The breakthrough came in early 2025, when one of Richard’s children, who was studying at Otago, visited the Department hoping to find photographs of his father.
After meeting Daphne, Richard’s family donated his field notebooks, including those from his Pitt Island trip.
“This enabled us to get enough specific locality information to prepare a Fossil Record Form and to scientifically catalogue the fossil,” Daphne says.
The paper was recently published in the New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics. It is the first report from Aotearoa of a Paleogene age bony fish, about 55 million years old, that was a pursuit predator near the top of the food chain.
The fossil was named Ikawaihere koehleri in recognition of Richard and the place where it was found. The study’s authors thanked Heidi Lanauze and the Hokotehi Moriori Trust for approving the name.
A predator gains its place
Mike says it was a privilege to work on the “remarkable fossil.”
“It greatly expands our knowledge of the evolutionary history of tarpons, and it preserves unique and unusual features in exquisite 3D detail,” he says.
“It is certainly among the most important and impressive fossils recovered to date from Aotearoa, New Zealand.”
Daphne says she’s very pleased that the paper is finally finished.
“It is a fitting tribute to Richard, Ewan, and Andrew. We’re extremely grateful to Richard’s family for donating his notebooks – we could not have done this without them.”
Reference: “A New Tarpon-Like Fish (Elopomorpha, Megalopidae) With Exceptional Preservation and Unusual Features From the Paleogene of Pitt Island, Chatham Islands, New Zealand” by Michael D. Gottfried, R. Ewan Fordyce, Jeffrey H. Robinson and Daphne E. Lee, 17 January 2026, New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics.
DOI: 10.1002/jgo2.70022
Never miss a breakthrough: Join the SciTechDaily newsletter.
Follow us on Google and Google News.