In Science Daily Online we tell you about the sea creatures that lived millions of years ago and that leave us breathless.In this occasion we want to talk to you about a bird that to cross you at the time would also have left you baffled : the Moa.
A not-so-old story
The giant bird silhouette flies over the imagination of human beings since time immemorial, so it is not so strange to see in films of the fifties or in more recent ones, such as 10,000 BC (2008), giant birds , chicken-like, three meters or more, chasing and devouring humans .
It can be funny, but also to some extent true, if the story had developed in New Zealand ago over five hundred years, and the encounter would have been between a maori and a moa .
Moa
The moas were not one but ten species that occupied the New Zealand islands, where they thrived for thousands of years thanks to the absence of great des mamiferos and other predators.They were classified, in general post mortem (as it was done by studying bones and other remains), as belonging to the Dinornithidae family (which in a more or less free translation would become “ great birds, "as well as dinosaur means" great lizard.") It is an extinct family, which started this way when the first men arrived on these islands, between 800 and 1,300 AD
The species of moas went from the size of a chicken to giants over three meters high and two hundred and forty kilograms and should have been easy prey for Polynesians , their pets and other animals that accompanied them in the settlement of these beautiful islands. They did not fly anymore they nested on the ground, which must have facilitated the destruction of the eggs and the death of the chicks.
The discovery and extinction
Although for some authors the moas had been extinguished by the fifteenth century , it is possible that some copies remained in the most remote areas of the islands; however the maories, the only inhabitants of these islands, did not inform none of the first European visitors of the existence of these birds, nor the Dutch Abel Janszon Tasman, who was in 1642 and baptized the islands with the name of New Zealand ; nor to the captain and famous English explorer James Cook, in 1769.It was not until the beginning of the 19th century that reports of American seal hunters on large bones were recorded of this strange bird, even with traces of meat.
Rare Avis
Despite rumors and speculation about sightings of this bird in sites far from New Zealand will most likely never get to see a live specimen .However, thanks to the bones and feathers, faithful reconstructions of as it was, and from the testimonies of their exterminators something is known about how they acted.
They had twice the size of a man , nested on the ground and defended themselves by hitting hard with their legs.strong> bones were thick and weighed almost as much as those of a elephant and the wings were almost completely gone.In addition to the human being he had another huge rival: the eagles of Haast ( Harpagornis moorei), a giant bird of prey today also missing.
If you liked this article, you might want to know why the dinosaurs became extinct.
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