#Broad-Billed Moa

[endlingmusings]

A lithograph from volume 7 of Transactions of the Zoological Society of London (1870) depicting the skull of a broad-billed moa. This species was found on both New Zealand’s North and South Islands, as well as neighboring Stewart Island. [ x ]

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Euryapteryx curtus

By Jack Wood

Etymology: Broad Lacker of Wings

First Described By: Haast, 1874

Classification: Dinosauromorpha, Dinosauriformes, Dracohors, Dinosauria, Saurischia, Eusaurischia, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Avetheropoda, Coelurosauria, Tyrannoraptora, Maniraptoriformes, Maniraptora, Pennaraptora, Paraves, Eumaniraptora, Averaptora, Avialae, Euavialae, Avebrevicauda, Pygostylia, Ornithothoraces, Euornithes, Ornithuromorpha, Ornithurae, Neornithes, Palaeognathae, Notopalaeognathae, Tinamiformes + Dinornithiformes Clade, Dinornithiformes, Emeidae

Status: Extinct

Time and Place: Between 130,000 and 600 years ago, from the Chibanian of the Pleistocene and the Holocene 

The Broad-Billed Moa is known from all over the New Zealand islands, especially lowland dunes, forests, shrublands, and grasslands 

Physical Description: The Broad-Billed Moa was a large, bulky dinosaur, covered in very shaggy feathers all over its body. It had a long neck, ending in a small head, with a wide bill - hence the name! It also had very sturdy, thick feet. These birds - like all Moa - entirely lost their wings, giving them a fairly boxy appearance. Their shaggy feathers would have been somewhat monochromatic, as well. These birds would grow up to one meter long, and females of this species were probably larger than the males. 

Diet: The Broad-Billed Moa was an herbivore, grazing on a wide variety of plant material (including grass). 

By Michael B. H., CC BY-SA 3.0 

Behavior: These birds would have been somewhat slower animals, spending most of their time lumbering about the coasts and plains of New Zealand, and eating most of the plant material they could find. They probably would eat as much food as they could, using their broad bills to grab more food and to not selectively browse on specific plants. They also probably herded together, forming loose groups as they roamed across the fields for food. These birds probably took care of their young, though how and to what extent is uncertain as it varies quite a bit amongst other ratites. 

Ecosystem: New Zealand in the Pleistocene and Holocene was an extremely unique ecosystem, one of the few places in the world largely free of mammals during the Cenozoic. This meant that birds tended to fill the niches of mammals, doing things that ancient non-avian dinosaurs used to do. In addition, the lack of mammalian predators allowed for extensive diversification of birds even within their usual niches - the weird New Zealand Wrens, for example, are some of the most unique types of perching birds.  

By Scott Reid 

This environment consisted of many other Moas, such as Pachyornis, Anomalopteryx, and Dinornis just to name a few; the aforementioned Kiwi bird; and other large weird birds like the Kākāpō and Kea and Kākā, other parrots, other passerines, cuckoos, swifts, water birds, owls, and more. During the days of the Moa, there was also the Haast’s Eagle, a large predator of Moa that would have been a huge thorn in the side of the Broad-Billed Moa. Also, there were Adzebills, weird relatives of living cranes that also filled the large land bird niche but with pointier beaks. In short, this was a modern-day Jurassic park, prior to being screwed up by human colonization and hunting, which drove many of these unique animals to extinction in the early modern period of history.

Other: For a long time, Moa like Euryapteryx were thought to be closely related to the other weird ratite of New Zealand, the Kiwi. However, later research revealed they were more closely related to the Tinamous of South America. What this shows is that, at some point, relatives of the Tinamous flew over to New Zealand, and colonized the island before becoming large, flightless weirdos.

~ By Meig Dickson

Sources Under the Cut 

Bunce, M., T. H. Worthy, M. J. Phillips, R. N. Holdaway, E. Willerslev, J. Haile, B. Shapiro, R. P. Scofield, A. Drummond, P. J. J. Kamp, and A. Cooper. 2009. The evolutionary history of the extinct ratite moa and New Zealand Neogene paleogeography. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106:20646-20651

Carroll, R. L. 1988. Vertebrate Paleontology and Evolution 1-698

Davies, S. J. J. F. (2003). "Moas". In Hutchins, Michael (ed.). Grzimek's Animal Life Encyclopedia. 8: Birds I: Tinamous and Ratites to Hoatzins (2nd ed.). Farmington Hills, MI: Gale Group.

Gill, B. J. (2010). "Regional comparisons of the thickness of moa eggshell fragments (Aves: Dinornithiformes)". Records of the Australian Museum. 62: 115–122.

Lambrecht, K. 1933. Handbuch der Palaeornithologie. 1-1024

Milkovsky, J. 1995. Nomenclatural and taxonomic status of fossil birds described by H.G.L. Reichenbach in 1852. Courier Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg 181:311-316

Owen, R. (1846). A History of British Fossil Mammals and Birds. London, UK: John Van Voorst.

Worthy, T. H., and R. N. Holdaway. 1994. Quaternary fossil faunas from caves in Takaka Valley and on Takaka Hill, northwest Nelson, South Island, New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 24(3):297-391

Worthy, T. H., and R. N. Holdaway. 1996. Taphonomy of two holocene microvertebrate deposits, Takaka Hill, Nelson, New Zealand, and identification of the avian predator responsible. Historical Biology 12(1):1-24

Worthy, T. H. 1998. A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand. Records of the Canterbury Museum 12:79-176

Worthy, T. H., and J. A. Grant-Mackie. 2003. Late-Pleistocene avifaunas from Cape Wanbrow, Otago, South Island, New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 33(1):427-485

Worthy, T. H.; Scofield, R. P. (2012). "Twenty-first century advances in knowledge of the biology of moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes): a new morphological analysis and moa diagnoses revised". New Zealand Journal of Zoology. 39 (2): 87–153.