12 Facts About Moa

Moa are an extinct group of flightless birds formerly endemic to New Zealand.

Moa extinction occurred within 100 years of human settlement of New Zealand, primarily due to overhunting by Maori.

Moa skeletons were traditionally reconstructed in an upright position to create impressive height, but analysis of their vertebral articulations indicates that they probably carried their heads forward, in the manner of a kiwi.

Moa are a group of flightless birds with no vestiges of wing bones, questions have been raised about how they arrived in New Zealand, and from where.

Moa fed on a range of plant species and plant parts, including fibrous twigs and leaves taken from low trees and shrubs.

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Moa filled the ecological niche occupied in other countries by large browsing mammals such as antelope and llamas.

Moa likely exercised a certain selectivity in the choice of gizzard stones and chose the hardest pebbles.

Moa nesting is often inferred from accumulations of eggshell fragments in caves and rock shelters, little evidence exists of the nests themselves.

Moa claimed that her brother had seen a moa on another occasion.

Moa was certain that these were the bones of a species of emu or ostrich, noting that "the Natives add that in times long past they received the traditions that very large birds had existed, but the scarcity of animal food, as well as the easy method of entrapping them, has caused their extermination".

Moa established it was part of the femur of a big animal, but it was uncharacteristically light and honeycombed.

Moa's deduction was ridiculed in some quarters, but was proved correct with the subsequent discoveries of considerable quantities of moa bones throughout the country, sufficient to reconstruct skeletons of the birds.