Craig Scott, head of design at Otago Museum, says there is little Permian material from New Zealand due to its geological makeup at that time, although some minerals have been dated as Permian.
"One example is the greywacke ventifact from Bluff on display in the Southern Land, Southern People gallery at Otago Museum."
New Zealand doesn’t have any fossils of any Permian terrestrial animal. Instead we have shallow marine fossils.
"We were part of the Panthallassic Ocean, otherwise known as the Paleo-Pacific," Hamish Campbell, senior scientist at GNS Science explains.
"There was also the Tethys Ocean, an equatorial seaway that developed between Euramerica and Gondwana, and we do have some fossils that might be described as Tethian-Permian ... they are a bit like floating lettuces and would have supported symbiotic algae."
Dr Campbell notes the richest Permian fossil area in New Zealand is in Southland, just north of Ohai.
"There are bolts of rock of Permian age in the Takitimu Mountains and the Waiariki Hills.
"In fact, there are rocks exposed at the surface in northwest Nelson and southern Fiordland areas that are much older. They date back to the Cambrian, which began about 540 million years ago, twice as old as the Permian."
