Ewan Fordyce

Ewan Fordyce was a prominent New Zealand paleontologist based at the University of Otago. He was a long-time faculty member in the Department of Geology, where he conducted extensive research and mentored students. The university's geology museum houses many of his incredible fossil discoveries.

Fordyce led extensive fieldwork in the South Island's fossil-rich Oligocene deposits, discovering and naming numerous ancient cetaceans and penguins. He uncovered some of the oldest known ancestor fossils of modern baleen whales. His findings helped establish the Southern Hemisphere as a critical region for early whale evolution.

Fordyce conducted his most significant paleontological fieldwork in the limestone formations of North Otago and the Canterbury region of New Zealand. These areas contain spectacular, exposed marine sedimentary rocks from the Paleogene period. The harsh, eroding coastlines there continually reveal new specimens of ancient marine mammals.

Yes, Fordyce was instrumental in the discovery and description of several massive, ancient penguin species. He and his colleagues named Kumimanu biceae, one of the largest prehistoric penguins ever found, which lived in Paleocene New Zealand. These discoveries proved that penguins reached enormous sizes very quickly after the extinction of the dinosaurs.