North Island giant moa
| North Island giant moa Temporal range: Late Pleistocene– Holocene | |
|---|---|
| Skeleton, Natural History Museum of London | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Infraclass: | Palaeognathae |
| Order: | †Dinornithiformes |
| Family: | †Dinornithidae |
| Genus: | †Dinornis |
| Species: | †D. novaezealandiae |
| Binomial name | |
| †Dinornis novaezealandiae Owen, 1843 | |
| Synonyms | |
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List
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| Measurements | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| North Island | |||
| Length | ♂ | 240 cm (94 in) | |
| ♀ | 300 cm (120 in) | ||
| Weight | ♂ | 55–88 kg (120–190 lb) | |
| ♀ | 78–249 kg (170–550 lb) | ||
The North Island giant moa (Dinornis novaezealandiae) is an extinct moa in the genus Dinornis, known in Māori as kuranui. It was a large, herbivorous bird belonging to the order Dinornithiformes, and exhibited a strong sexual dimorphism, with males weighing between 55 and 88 kg and females between 78 and 249 kg. It would have been the tallest bird ever to exist, able to stretch their heads to approximately 3 metres.
Dinornis robustus inhabited the North Island of New Zealand, living in lowland habitats like shrublands, grasslands and forests, fulfilling a role as one of the largest terrestrial herbivores in New Zealand's ecosystem. It would have been primarily herbivorous, although consumption of fungi has also been proposed. They laid large, fragile eggs which were incubated by the males, although the exact method is unknown.
Along with much of the other native fauna, Dinornis novaezealandiae disappeared from New Zealand around the 15th century, roughly 200 years after the Māori first arrived on the islands. It is thought that a number of factors contributed to their extinction, the most notable being overhunting.