It’s hard to believe that there was a time where our lands were walked by the largest beasts alive. No, not the dinosaurs, something much more unique…

The discovery

It all began in the 1800’s when a mysterious man turned up at the front door of my laboratory. He had this bone that his nephew from New Zealand had given him. He thought that this bone was so peculiar, it would be the next big thing. This man, called John Rule, honestly thought a cow bone was interesting! He must’ve lived a very boring life before this! 

I told him that he had wasted my time and that he should go back and continue living whatever life he had been living before. His response to that was shocking… He had pointed out that the marrow of this bone wasn’t even close to a cow bone as the marrow looked too similar to honeycomb. What he had just pointed out was fear. This bone had to have come from a bird…

Not so bad after all

Next thing I know, I’m comparing this bone with other bones from my immense assemblage to see if I had a match. Unfortunately I didn’t come across any duplicates in my collection. Then I realized that I should have been looking where the original was found, in New Zealand. 

I decided to send a letter to New Zealand (and other places, just for proportion) telling them about this mysterious bone that had been discovered, and asking them to please let people know that if anybody found a strange bone to ship it to me immediately. Hopefully something would be discovered sooner than later.

A few years later I got a letter from New Zealand saying that 2 men called William Colenso and William Williams had found a collection of bones down by a beach in New Zealand. They said that there would be boxes arriving in a few months.

All I could think when I got this letter was that the boxes that would arrive soon, may contain the missing pieces of this case…

To be or not to be?

I have been waiting for this boat to berth for many months and the wait will soon be over! Although I waited for a while and was excited to open it. I still had horrible thoughts filling my head, I couldn’t help but worry. 

What if there aren’t any matches? 

How can I be sure that this wouldn’t be a wasted four years of my life?

I knew that I couldn’t be sure that there were any matches yet. But then again I also knew that I had to hope for the best, think of all the bright sides. There could be a match and I could become famous for it. Maybe not famous, but like I said I have to think positive!  

Finally the boat had berthed and the boxes had arrived. Before I opened them up I thought about how many people I wanted to thank for helping me with this discovery. Without them, this case may never be solved.

I opened the first box and compared the bones. They looked practically identical, the differences were one was larger than the other and one was hole, the other wasn’t. I looked through the other boxes when I eventually found an actual pair!

Thanks to William Williams and William Colenso this inspection was finally over. Even if it did take four years and a few months, the adventure is finally over.

Conclusion

My first reaction was shock and I was mad that John Rule had brought me a bone that I thought was stupid. My final reaction was astonishment and excitement. I had been a lead part in a major discovery. 

This is Richard Owens signing out!