skip to main |
skip to sidebar
It seems a Maori legend about a giant man-eating eagle is true.
Haast's eagle (Harpagornis moorei) was discovered in swamp deposits
by Sir Julius von Haast in the 1870s. But it was at first thought to be a
scavenger because its bill was similar to a vulture's with hoods over
its nostrils to stop flesh blocking its air passages as it rooted around
inside carcasses.
But a re-examination of skeletons using modern technology, including
CAT scans, by researchers at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch and the
University of New South Wales in Australia showed it had a strong enough
pelvis to support a killing blow as it dived at speeds of up to 80kph.
With a wingspan of up to three metres and weighing 18kg, the female
was twice as big as the largest living eagle, the Steller's sea eagle.
And the bird's talons were as big as a tiger's claws. "It was certainly
capable of swooping down and taking a child," said Paul Scofield, the
curator of vertebrate zoology at the Canterbury Museum. "They had the
ability to not only strike with their talons but to close the talons and
put them through quite solid objects such as a pelvis. It was designed
as a killing machine."
Its main prey would have been moa, flightless birds which grew to as
much as 250kg and 2.5 metres tall. "In some fossil sites, moa bones have
been found with signs of eagle predation," Dr Scofield said.
New Zealand has no native land mammals because it became isolated
from other continents in the Cretaceous, more than 65 million years ago.
As a result, birds filled niches usually populated by large mammals
such as deer and cattle. "Haast's eagle wasn't just the equivalent of a
giant predatory bird," said Dr Scofield. "It was the equivalent of a
lion." The eagle is thought to have died out after the arrival, 1,000
years ago, of humans, who exterminated the giant moa. The latest study
shows it was a recent immigrant to the islands, related to the little
eagle (Aquila morphnoides) an Australian bird weighing less than 1kg. (Read entire article.)
Share
1 comment:
I read a great book that presented her as a hunts woman, and a passionate woman, who at the end of her life wrote very beautiful introspective letters. She became introspective and really discovered her faith. Faith often comes with adversity. Like Marie Antoinnette she has been sorely misrepresented by history.
Post a Comment