Saturday, December 29, 2012

Any live moas out there?

(I wanted to title this, "Are there any moa moas?" but the pun was too bad even for me.)
New Zealand's ecosystem was dominated for millennia by birds, especially the giant moas. We mostly think about the giants, the predatory moas who dwarfed ostriches - and the early Maoris, who may have roasted the last giant moa over a campfire.  But what about the smaller ones, especially the meter-tall upland moa, known scientifically as Megalapteryx? Karl Shuker here discusses an impressive sighting from the 1880s and a scattering of other reports and rumors that might indicate the species survived until recent years - or still does. 

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