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| Photo by Sciencemag.org |
Moa is New Zealand’s largest birds apparently became wiped out within one hundred of humans first landing in New Zealand, about 1300 AD. Although, there were unconfirmed sightings of moa by whalers and sealers into the 18th and even 19th centuries. Moa is ostrich-like flightless birds native to New Zealand and compose the order Dinornithiformes. Approximately 600 years ago, moas abruptly went defunct. Their extinction coincided with the appearance of the first humans on the islands in the late 13th century, and scientists have questioned what role hunting by Homo sapiens (Humans) played in the moas’ deterioration.
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| North Island Giant Moa skeleton CC BY 4.0 National History Museum, London Credit: Wikipedia |
Scientists have long debated about what began the extinction of many species of giant animals including mammoths, mastodons, and moas, occurring between 9000 and 13,000 years ago when humans started to spread around the world. Usually, the animals abandoned shortly after humans landed in their habitats, directing some researchers to recommend that we killed them by overhunting. But some scientists have led to natural conditions, such as disease, volcanic eruptions, and climate change at the end of last Ice Age, as the key causes for these species’ dies. The moas show an especially fascinating case, researchers say, because they were the last of the giant species to disappear, and they did so recently when a changing environment was no longer a factor. But did other natural reasons set them on a direction to unconsciousness, as some scientists suggested in a 2004 paper?
Moa were nine species. The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae reached around 3.6 metres in height with neck outstretched and weighed around 230 kilograms. They were the only wingless bird identified to have existed, yet their cousin the flightless kiwi still has small underlying wings covered under its feathers.
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| Size comparison between four moa species and a human 1. Dinornis novaezealandiae 2. Emeus crassus 3. Anomalopteryx didiformis 4. Dinornis robustus CC BY 3.0 Credit: Wikipedia |
According to Maori tradition, moas were speedy runners that protected themselves by kicking when cornered. Early Polynesian peoples captured moas for food and made spear points, hooks, and ornaments from their bones and water transporters from their eggs.
Moas were mainly browsers and grazers. Inference from skeletal and other remains unveils that they ate seeds, fruits, leaves, and grasses, which were ground with the help of more than 3 kg of stones in the gizzard. Moas laid one large egg, up to 18 cm in diameter and 25 cm long, in a hollow in the ground.
