North Canterbury News: December 14, 2023

10 The
NEWS
North Canterbury News, December 14, 2023
AGreat White ancestor uncovered in NC
By JOHN COSGROVE
To most people the small pebble or
boulder washed smooth on the beach by
hundreds of thousands of years of water
action is just that –apebble.
But when amateur palaeontologist
Morne Mamlambo‘s trained eye spotted a
tiny fissure in apebble at Motunau Beach,
he carefully uncovered a6million­yearold
shark’s tooth that spawned awhole
new species for New Zealand.
It could possibly be the famed Great
White shark's Paleocene period ancestor
and it goes by the name of Hubbell'swhite
shark —scientific name Carcharadon
hubbelli.
He says it probably grew to be more than
5m in size.
‘‘In fact it is atransitional shark species,
one that bridges earlier species, the
Hastalis, with the Great Whites of today,’’
he says.
‘‘This is the furthest south that they have
been found and it is helping scientists
globally.
Morne says the tooth dates from the
Miocene period, betweensix to 11 million
years ago.
‘‘The reason it is important is that it can
tell us very precisely how old that
particular rock is, as the transitional shark
are only know from areas that are six to
eight million years old.’’
The South African born software
engineer uses hunting for fossils on
beachesinNorth Canterbury as away to
relieve the stresses of work.
Most weekends he can be found out
lookingfor fossils in and around the mouth
of the Motunau River, near the small
Motunau Beach settlement.
Once he finds aprospect or two, he
painstakinglychips the fossils out of them,
often reverting to X­rays and 3D printing
technology to see them, which was the
Rare find... Morne Mamlambo’s shark
tooth he found in Motunau Beach, which
has been publishedasanew species for
New Zealand. It is related to the great white
shark.
case of arecent Turtle skull. It took him
five months to break it freeofits boulder.
His palaeontology journey began five
years ago when he found afossilised
dolphin vertebra while walking along the
beach.
He took it to the Canterbury Museum
and they said it was over six million years
old.
Since then he has uncovered all sorts of
Beach treasure ... Amateur palaeontologist Morne Mamlambo holding a48million year
old billfish skull he found recently.
PHOTOS: MAMLAMBO FOSSILS
fossils from the beach area dating from
periods up to 66 million years ago.
There has been plenty of sharks teeth,
all manner of crabs, shells, and other
fossils,and acomplete skeleton of anew
species of penguin.
Keen to show his family what he was
uncovering in New Zealand, Morne
started aYouTube channel which has
proved very popular. His channel now has
over 500,000 subscribers and some videos
have over 1.5million views.
The sharks tooth discovery was recently
the subject of scientific paper and was
donated to amuseum, like all his
important finds. Now in his spare time he
visits school to talk about New Zealand
fossils.
‘‘Schools only have American or
European dinosaurs to show pupils. I go
there to educate children on what they can
find in their own back yard.’’
Morne says when amateurs, like
himself, find arare fossil they should
preserve the site, record and GPS tag it,
and call the major museums.
Thankyou!
Thankyou NorthCanterburyfor your continuedand generous support
of Toot 4Tuckeragain this year.
Alsothank youtoall of thewonderful volunteers foryourtime.
Wishing you all avery Merry Christmas.