''Pikaihao bartlei'', also referred to as Bartle's bittern or the Saint Bathans bittern, is a genus and species of

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

small bittern from the Early Miocene of New Zealand. It was described in 2013 from fossil material (a left

tarsometatarsus The tarsometatarsus is a bone that is only found in the lower leg of birds and some non-avian dinosaurs. It is formed from the fusion of several bones found in other types of animals, and homologous to the mammalian tarsus (ankle bones) and meta ...

and a cranial part left coracoid) found in the Saint Bathans Fauna of the Bannockburn Formation, at Home Hills Station in the Manuherikia River valley of

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

. It was a contemporary of the much larger Saint Bathans heron, remains of which have been found in the same sediments. The genus name ''Pikaihao'' comes from the Māori ''pi'' (a prefix for small birds or chicks) and ''kaihao'' (“fisherman”). The specific epithet honours Sandy Bartle, Curator of Birds at the

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is New Zealand's national museum and is located in Wellington. ''Te Papa Tongarewa'' translates literally to "container of treasures" or in full "container of treasured things and people that spring fr ...

from 1976 to 2009.

References

Fossil taxa described in 2013 Miocene birds Extinct birds of New Zealand Ardeidae Extinct monotypic bird genera {{Paleo-bird-stub