Page "Australian Pelican" Paragraph 7

The species became first known to occur in New Zealand from a specimen shot at Jerusalem in 1890 and small numbers of subfossil bones, the first found at Lake Grassmere in 1947, followed by records of other stray individuals.

The bones were later described as a new ( sub ) species, Pelecanus ( conspicillatus ) novaezealandiae ( Scarlett, 1966: " New Zealand Pelican ") as they appeared to be larger, but Worthy ( 1998 ), reviewing new material, determined that they were not separable from the Australian population.

These fossils were first found in 1930.