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This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 25 January 2025. Extinct order of birds This article is about the extinct New Zealand birds known as moa. For other uses, see Moa (disambiguation). Moa Temporal range: Miocene – Holocene, 17–0.0006 Ma Pre๊ ๊ O S D C P T J K Pg N North Island giant moa skeleton Scientific classification Domain ...
These parrots regularly eat seeds and unripe fruits containing alkaloids and other toxins that render the seeds and fruits bitter and even lethal. Because many of these chemicals become positively charged in the acidic stomach, they bind to clay minerals which have negatively charged cation-exchange sites, and are thereby rendered safe.
The seedeaters are a form taxon of seed-eating passerine birds with a distinctively conical bill. Most are Central and South American birds that were formerly placed in the American sparrow family (Passerellidae), but are now known to be tanagers (Thraupidae) closely related to Darwins finches .
As of 2006, half of all complete or mostly complete moa eggs in museum collections are likely broad-billed moa specimens. [12] Of the specimens traditionally given the name Euryapteryx gravis , the eggs has an average length of 205mm and width of 143mm, while the group traditionally assigned to the name Euryapteryx curtus had an average length ...
The heavy-footed moa (Pachyornis elephantopus) is a species of moa from the lesser moa family. The heavy-footed moa was widespread only in the South Island of New Zealand, and its habitat was the lowlands (shrublands, dunelands, grasslands, and forests). [3] The moa were ratites, flightless birds with a sternum without a keel.
The lesser moa [a] (family Emeidae) were a family in the moa order Dinornithiformes. About two-thirds of all moa species are in the lesser moa family. [2] The moa were ratites from New Zealand. Ratites are flightless birds with a sternum without a keel. They also have a distinctive palate.
Skeleton in the Copenhagen Zoological Museum. Emeus was of average size, standing 1.5 to 1.8 metres (4.9–5.9 ft) tall, and weighing from 36 to 79kg. [9] Like other moa, it had no vestigial wing bones, hair-like feathers (beige in this case), a long neck and large, powerful legs with very short, strong tarsi. [10]
This moa usually laid only 1 to 2 blue-green coloured eggs at once, [10] [22] and was likely the only type of moa to lay eggs that were not white in colour. [23] Like the emu and ostrich, male moa cared for the young. [9] The upland moa's only predator before the arrival of humans in New Zealand was the Haast's eagle (Hieraaetus moorei). [10]