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Description
SEE UPDATED PROFILE

Dinornis robustus
New Zealand.
A land that is home to countless unique birds, from the flightless parrot, the Kakapo, the colorful ground-dwelling rail, the Takahe, and of course, the most bizarre and insectivorous ratite, the kiwi. Not even 1,000 years ago, the twin islands were home to the most remarkable group of birds, the Moas.
Nine species of moa roamed the highlands, lowlands, forests, plains, and even coastal plains foraging for food. However, none would be larger than the South Island Giant Moa, Dinornis robustus.
History:
The native aboriginals of New Zealand, the Māori, were the first humans to encounter these animals. The largest bird they and their ancestors had seen would have been either a pelican or a gull. On the South Island, they would encounter a bird 33 times the size of the largest pelican. The first reaction to seeing these birds was probably fear. However, that would be replaced by another… opportunity. As will be discussed later.
The word "Moa" is Polynesian for chicken or fowl. Also, the Māori peoples never used that term for it. It's believed that a tribesman showed missionary William Williams a bone in 1834-1837. He marveled at the size of this bone. When asked what it belonged to, he was told it belonged to a bird. While at the village, he likely mixed up the words when conversing with the people. One of the tribesmen called the owner of the bird "Movie" or "Moa," and the shorter name stuck.
In 1838, Joel Samuel Polack was told of giant birds like Ostriches that once roamed the forests of New Zealand. In his journals, he wrote of this animal, "the Natives add that in times long past they received the traditions that huge birds had existed, but the scarcity of animal food, as well as the easy method of entrapping them, has caused their extermination."
Dr. Ernest Dieffenbach from the United Kingdom was sent to New Zealand to recover bone fragments for Sir Richard Owen in 1838. When he arrived, Dieffenbach asked some local Māori people for bones, and among them was a bone of what the tribesmen said was a giant bird. It's likely the term moa had spread around and was called "Moa." After he was gifted the bones, he brought the fossils back to the United Kingdom in London. There, they were examined by Sir Richard Owen in 1839.
Owen, when told by Dieffenbach that these were bird bones, he laughed this off, at first. However, when he investigated the bone in detail over, the logic was inescapable. The honeycombed structure was common in birds, it was lightweight and he saw that structurally, it was comparable to the Ostrich. However, this bone was far more significant. He announced his discovery in the 1840s dubbing it "Dinornis". It was derived from the Greek "Deinos," meaning "Terrible," and "Ornis" a shortened version of bird. So, it literally means terrible bird.
Some of Owen's colleagues scoffed at the implications, however, in the intervening years, Owen received more fossils and was able to reconstruct it. In 1846, he dubbed one of the species Dinornis robustus. The robust terrible bird.
However, in 1912 Māori Chief Urupeni Puhara was interviewed regarding his culture. One of the things discussed was these giant birds. He said, "The Moa was not the name by which the great bird that lived in this country was known to my ancestors. The name was Te Kura or the red bird."
Likely, he was not referring to the Giant Moa. As will be explained, they were probably the first to vanish.
Taxonomy:
It was believed they were originally related to the only other paleognath on the island, the kiwis.
This had been the belief for decades, given that they're both paleognaths on New Zealand, they probably split in the early paleocene some 60,000,000 million years ago. One group became browsing and grazing deer, cows, giraffes or New Zealand, and another became insectivorous long-beaked kiwis.
It was the advent of DNA analysis that this would prove paleontologists wrong. In 2010, DNA found that moas and the South American paleognaths, the tinamou, were sister lineages. Furthermore, the kiwi's closest cousins being the cassowary and the elephant birds of Madagascar.
Based on genetic evidence, the ancestors of moa arrived in New Zealand roughly 60,000,000 years ago by flying to the island. Overtime, evolution took its course and eventually they would reach what would become the evolutionary form they were when they died off.
In terms of their own family, dinornithidae, there were once over 60 species described. However, with the advent of DNA technology, it is now accepted that there are 9 species of moa that roamed the islands as little as 600 years ago. Two other fossil species have been described from the Miocene around 12-9,000,000 years ago; however, they have not been named yet.
Description:
The South Island Giant Moa was quite the imposing bird, albeit, if you're mainly referring to the females.
In most moa species, females were usually larger than males, however, this was taken to another level with Dinornis itself. In the South Island Giant Moa, Female birds were 150% bigger in terms of dimensions and nearly 300% bigger in terms of mass.
A male would have stood roughly 3-4ft tall at the shoulder and around 180-190lbs in weight. Females would have been 5.5-6.5ft tall at the shoulder, and 450-550lbs in weight. This is a phenomenon known as
"reverse sexual dimorphism". While not common, it has been seen in other paleognaths like emus, kiwis, and eagles.
By looking at their skulls, their neck is attached at the back of the head instead of the bottom, which is indicative of holding their neck out straight and curving up similar to the cassowary. Nonetheless, if these animals stood fully upright, they would have towered over all other birds, reaching heights of 11-12ft. Based on Māori rock art, specifically in Te Manunui Cave from the South Island, these birds were more than capable of achieving that.
The skull itself was broad yet flattened with a decurved beak designed for grazing and browsing from foliage.
These animals while the tallest birds on New Zealand and the world, were also proportionally lightly built. Suggesting a less active lifestyle given a risk of breakage to their lither limbs. Nonetheless, their hindlimbs were robust and powerful. They had 4 digits on their feet with one of them functioning as a dewclaw and lacking any function whatsoever. The toes were spread evenly apart and of relatively similar length with no enlarged claw on their foot as seen with animals like birds of prey or cassowaries.
Unique among all birds is that Moas have essentially lost forelimbs altogether. These birds lacked any form of wings, not even vestigial wings as seen in other ratites like the emu, ostriches, or even the kiwi.
With a handful of preserved feathers found on various subfossil remains, we know what these awesome birds would have looked like in life. The body would have been covered in reddish-brown hair-like feathers around 18cm in length and covered their entire body except for their legs. They also possibly had streaks of a lighter color, interspersing their plumage on other areas of the body.
Habitat and Diet:
Fossil and subfossil remains recovered from caves, dunes, swamps, and middens show that it was widespread in the eastern South Island from coastal Marlborough and to Southland. The habitat of this Moa species would have been mainly forested areas and some semi-open woodland. They largely stuck to the midlands or lowland areas. Likely went as far inland as into some alpine areas; however, they would not have lived there full-time.
Diet-wise, this was New Zealand's equivalent of the giraffe. And like a giraffe, they would have been predominantly browsers of vegetation in the region's temperate forests and sub-alpine areas. They were using their broad beak to clip vegetation from trees. However, they may have been able to graze some grasses and nip some fruit too.
Like most ratites, they would swallow rounded pebbles known as gastroliths designed to help them process their food.
Behavior and Reproduction:
In terms of the behavior, a lot can be extrapolated from studying their bones and their extant paleognath cousins.
As previously mentioned, the sexual dimorphism of these birds was staggering. However, there was a reason for that. It's believed that the reason was to allow the male birds to rear the young (as will be discussed).
From studies into both remains of eggs and modern birds that live in similar environments like the cassowary, information can be extrapolated from their breeding habits. South Island Giant Moas are believed to have built nests in hollow trees or rocks for structures for their eggs and reused them over many years, likely meaning they bred as isolated pairs rather than colonies. Similar to modern-day Emus or Cassowaries.
The eggs would have weighed over 8lbs when fresh, and females would have laid a single or two eggs in a shallow bed of dirt and plant material. The father would be responsible for caring for the eggs and, later, the chicks.
The eggs had the thinnest shell of any bird relative to size, being only 1.4mm thin. It has been suggested that, like modern emus or rhea, the male would wrap his long neck around the eggs to keep them insulated in the temperate environment to avoid breaking them. Once the baby hatched, like modern ratites, they would have been precocial, able to run, see, and eat immediately. However, they would've depended on their parents, primarily the father, for protection. It would have taken around 3-5 years to reach sexual maturity. However, their social behavior means they would not have branched out and formed their territory until they were much older, perhaps up to 10 years. After they had their own territory, they were long-lived birds. Capable of living for over half a century.
Fossil finds from Bell Hill Vineyard, and Pyramid Valley indicate the populations of these giant moas were largely mature adults. The time it took to reach sexual maturity, form their territory, and start breeding would ultimately be these magnificent birds' downfall.
Predation of these birds was rare, given the size they reached. However, they were only partially free of predators. Adzebills, distant cousins of rails likely hunted Moa chicks, and even giant moa Babies were on the menu. Wekas could have intruded on nests and picked at the eggs too.
The most iconic predator was not a creature that dwelled on the ground. The Haast's Eagle was the largest bird of prey and the largest Apex Predator on the South Island. Even a massive female giant moa was not invincible to these birds. A fossil pelvis which was described in 2008 consisted of a giant moa found at Glencrieff Swamp dated to around 10,000 B.C.E. shows scraping impact marks on a Moas pelvis. It's believed these giant eagles swooped in grabbed the moa by the pelvis and then crushed the neck using their massive foot equipped with talons the size of Tiger's Claws.
Extinction:
These magnificent birds are a recent extinction on the twin islands (relatively speaking). This was an animal that was not a relic from a million, 100,000 or even 10,000 years ago. These animals died out at the latest, 600 years ago. When Richard III was on the English Throne and the printing press was beginning production, the Māori was slaughtering these awesome animals. Likely, the Giant Moa was already gone.
Pollack, who was one of the first to see the fossils of moa, noted that he had received reports from both Māori tribesmen and even Sealers "that species of "Struthio" (the Dinornithiformes hadn't been classified yet) still existed in remote parts of the South Island". While possible some Moas could have persisted till the 1800s, they were not Giant Moas. Perhaps, IF they were Moas, they would've been heavy-footed or little bush moas.
In the midden pits, giant moa remains are relatively low in numbers. The little bush moa and heavy-footed moa are the most common. With their larger size and less active lifestyle, it's likely that these animals were hunted and killed first. They were probably lower in terms of population and were more elusive. However, their elusive nature could not protect them from their extinction.
Bernard Heuvelmans, known as "the father of modern cryptozoology," is also lesser known for tracking down living moas. While his efforts were fruitless, he did get one thing out of his endeavor.
To track and discover these animals, he had to learn about them. Best way to do that? He deduced that the best moa experts were ones who dealt with them.
Or at least whose ancestors dealt with them. In the 60s, he talked to many oral historians and Māori elders who oversaw keeping records of their ancestors' lives solely through oral methods. Among the things they recorded were Moa hunts.
This is actually a period noted by historians and paleontologists known as the "Archaic" or "Moa Hunting" period of Māori History.
Obviously, the most common tactic would be to steal eggs from moa nests. However, to get to them, meant taking out the parents, and that meant hunting the big game, the adults. Various tribes would employ snares and nooses made from flax. Trapped and unable to use their powerful limbs to kick and hurt the hunters, the Māori would jab at their torsos with spears, and/or they would knock them to the ground and club them to death to finish them off.

Probably most gruesome of all would be taking advantage of their own biology by using gastroliths. They would heat a stone in fire, a Moa would come along, the hunters would throw the stone towards them. Then attracted to the motion and fresh stone in front of them, they would gulp the stone down, resulting in searing pain. While in agony, they would spear and club the bird to death. When the Moa numbers were at their lowest, Māori would use fire to burn down forests to drive some of the last of these giant birds out of the woodlands and into killing fields.
While some moa species persisted into around 1500AD, specifically in the highlands, the last of the Giant Moas are believed to have been wiped out around a hundred years after the Māori arrived in 1400AD. Largely because they were confined to the South Island's lower areas.
These iconic animals are a symbol of New Zealand's past. A time when giants roamed the twin islands and tragically these animals are gone.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
YOP. I'm alive y'all.
I've been busy these past few weeks. Had to get some other animals up and running for Past Meets Present, got promoted at work, and been focusing a lot on PMP.
I decided to have my friend DH on ZT2 TRT give me the Giant Moas for Past Meets Present. I just never was a fan of my old version of moa. Plus, my old version of extinct animal profiles is massively out of date, and I wanted to redo the profile with new info I found.
Little bit of an announcement too, I decided to redo PMP Ep1 and 2 after I am done with season 1. I'll do it while in production with season 2. So, look forward to seeing these guys properly utilized in a redone version of episode 1.
Why am I doing this? Well, allow me to restate something from the old profile:
Personal Angle: The FIRST paleo-documentary I ever watched live on TV featured the South Island Giant Moa.
I was around 6 years old and on Animal Planet was Land of Lost Monsters. An edited version of Monsters We Met for American Audiences (why it was edited and replaced the awesome voice of the late, great Ian Holmes with some default American voice I will NEVER know).
Knowing such a huge bird existed captivated me. Yeah, I was into dinosaurs since I was like three years old as every kid was. Hell, I also consider the Field Museum my second home and was alive when T.rex mania hit the Windy City. But as far as I remember, I never saw such a unique depiction of long-dead extinct animals resurrected so realistically. The idea of giant birds like the moa and Haast's Eagle, which were around so recently and knowing that an eagle could have hunted not just Moas but possibly humans made 6-year-old me OBSESSED with extinct life. Following that, I got WWD, Ballad of Big Al, and WWB and I like to think this bird fascinated me with prehistoric life.
Now, today, has the documentary aged well?
No, the Haast's Eagle was a Harpy Eagle upscaled with CGI, and the moa was just an ostrich with moa proportions and had the wrong neck posture. Plus, the documentary portrays the Māori as selectively hunting individual moas. Literally, all they did was walk up to the large moa, put a rope around it so it couldn't get away, and then just one jab of the spear, and it went down. Now, granted, they had a budget, but if they wanted to show a more accurate method of moa killing why not just have the scene of Māori burn down the brush to drive them out of the brush. That, at least, was accurate.
Furthermore, I think the large female was "looking after" the egg. And all they did was wait for the moa to move off and then the Māori hunting party took the giant egg. I don't know of any Ratite who just abandons the egg to go and feed isolated in NZ or not. No, the male would look after it, and they'd have to go through him to get the egg. But still, its inaccuracies while they are there do not change the fact that I'm grateful for such an amazing documentary existing to get me interested in paleontology.
I've got all 9 species of moa and may do more of them in the future so look forward to that. In the meantime, I'll see you guys later!
Giant Moa by Demon Hunter. Currently being worked on, IDK when it'll be released. Please, DO NOT ask him or me for it.

Description
SEE UPDATED PROFILE

Dinornis robustus
New Zealand.
A land that is home to countless unique birds, from the flightless parrot, the Kakapo, the colorful ground-dwelling rail, the Takahe, and of course, the most bizarre and insectivorous ratite, the kiwi. Not even 1,000 years ago, the twin islands were home to the most remarkable group of birds, the Moas.
Nine species of moa roamed the highlands, lowlands, forests, plains, and even coastal plains foraging for food. However, none would be larger than the South Island Giant Moa, Dinornis robustus.
History:
The native aboriginals of New Zealand, the Māori, were the first humans to encounter these animals. The largest bird they and their ancestors had seen would have been either a pelican or a gull. On the South Island, they would encounter a bird 33 times the size of the largest pelican. The first reaction to seeing these birds was probably fear. However, that would be replaced by another… opportunity. As will be discussed later.
The word "Moa" is Polynesian for chicken or fowl. Also, the Māori peoples never used that term for it. It's believed that a tribesman showed missionary William Williams a bone in 1834-1837. He marveled at the size of this bone. When asked what it belonged to, he was told it belonged to a bird. While at the village, he likely mixed up the words when conversing with the people. One of the tribesmen called the owner of the bird "Movie" or "Moa," and the shorter name stuck.
In 1838, Joel Samuel Polack was told of giant birds like Ostriches that once roamed the forests of New Zealand. In his journals, he wrote of this animal, "the Natives add that in times long past they received the traditions that huge birds had existed, but the scarcity of animal food, as well as the easy method of entrapping them, has caused their extermination."
Dr. Ernest Dieffenbach from the United Kingdom was sent to New Zealand to recover bone fragments for Sir Richard Owen in 1838. When he arrived, Dieffenbach asked some local Māori people for bones, and among them was a bone of what the tribesmen said was a giant bird. It's likely the term moa had spread around and was called "Moa." After he was gifted the bones, he brought the fossils back to the United Kingdom in London. There, they were examined by Sir Richard Owen in 1839.
Owen, when told by Dieffenbach that these were bird bones, he laughed this off, at first. However, when he investigated the bone in detail over, the logic was inescapable. The honeycombed structure was common in birds, it was lightweight and he saw that structurally, it was comparable to the Ostrich. However, this bone was far more significant. He announced his discovery in the 1840s dubbing it "Dinornis". It was derived from the Greek "Deinos," meaning "Terrible," and "Ornis" a shortened version of bird. So, it literally means terrible bird.
Some of Owen's colleagues scoffed at the implications, however, in the intervening years, Owen received more fossils and was able to reconstruct it. In 1846, he dubbed one of the species Dinornis robustus. The robust terrible bird.
However, in 1912 Māori Chief Urupeni Puhara was interviewed regarding his culture. One of the things discussed was these giant birds. He said, "The Moa was not the name by which the great bird that lived in this country was known to my ancestors. The name was Te Kura or the red bird."
Likely, he was not referring to the Giant Moa. As will be explained, they were probably the first to vanish.
Taxonomy:
It was believed they were originally related to the only other paleognath on the island, the kiwis.
This had been the belief for decades, given that they're both paleognaths on New Zealand, they probably split in the early paleocene some 60,000,000 million years ago. One group became browsing and grazing deer, cows, giraffes or New Zealand, and another became insectivorous long-beaked kiwis.
It was the advent of DNA analysis that this would prove paleontologists wrong. In 2010, DNA found that moas and the South American paleognaths, the tinamou, were sister lineages. Furthermore, the kiwi's closest cousins being the cassowary and the elephant birds of Madagascar.
Based on genetic evidence, the ancestors of moa arrived in New Zealand roughly 60,000,000 years ago by flying to the island. Overtime, evolution took its course and eventually they would reach what would become the evolutionary form they were when they died off.
In terms of their own family, dinornithidae, there were once over 60 species described. However, with the advent of DNA technology, it is now accepted that there are 9 species of moa that roamed the islands as little as 600 years ago. Two other fossil species have been described from the Miocene around 12-9,000,000 years ago; however, they have not been named yet.
Description:
The South Island Giant Moa was quite the imposing bird, albeit, if you're mainly referring to the females.
In most moa species, females were usually larger than males, however, this was taken to another level with Dinornis itself. In the South Island Giant Moa, Female birds were 150% bigger in terms of dimensions and nearly 300% bigger in terms of mass.
A male would have stood roughly 3-4ft tall at the shoulder and around 180-190lbs in weight. Females would have been 5.5-6.5ft tall at the shoulder, and 450-550lbs in weight. This is a phenomenon known as
"reverse sexual dimorphism". While not common, it has been seen in other paleognaths like emus, kiwis, and eagles.
By looking at their skulls, their neck is attached at the back of the head instead of the bottom, which is indicative of holding their neck out straight and curving up similar to the cassowary. Nonetheless, if these animals stood fully upright, they would have towered over all other birds, reaching heights of 11-12ft. Based on Māori rock art, specifically in Te Manunui Cave from the South Island, these birds were more than capable of achieving that.
The skull itself was broad yet flattened with a decurved beak designed for grazing and browsing from foliage.
These animals while the tallest birds on New Zealand and the world, were also proportionally lightly built. Suggesting a less active lifestyle given a risk of breakage to their lither limbs. Nonetheless, their hindlimbs were robust and powerful. They had 4 digits on their feet with one of them functioning as a dewclaw and lacking any function whatsoever. The toes were spread evenly apart and of relatively similar length with no enlarged claw on their foot as seen with animals like birds of prey or cassowaries.
Unique among all birds is that Moas have essentially lost forelimbs altogether. These birds lacked any form of wings, not even vestigial wings as seen in other ratites like the emu, ostriches, or even the kiwi.
With a handful of preserved feathers found on various subfossil remains, we know what these awesome birds would have looked like in life. The body would have been covered in reddish-brown hair-like feathers around 18cm in length and covered their entire body except for their legs. They also possibly had streaks of a lighter color, interspersing their plumage on other areas of the body.
Habitat and Diet:
Fossil and subfossil remains recovered from caves, dunes, swamps, and middens show that it was widespread in the eastern South Island from coastal Marlborough and to Southland. The habitat of this Moa species would have been mainly forested areas and some semi-open woodland. They largely stuck to the midlands or lowland areas. Likely went as far inland as into some alpine areas; however, they would not have lived there full-time.
Diet-wise, this was New Zealand's equivalent of the giraffe. And like a giraffe, they would have been predominantly browsers of vegetation in the region's temperate forests and sub-alpine areas. They were using their broad beak to clip vegetation from trees. However, they may have been able to graze some grasses and nip some fruit too.
Like most ratites, they would swallow rounded pebbles known as gastroliths designed to help them process their food.
Behavior and Reproduction:
In terms of the behavior, a lot can be extrapolated from studying their bones and their extant paleognath cousins.
As previously mentioned, the sexual dimorphism of these birds was staggering. However, there was a reason for that. It's believed that the reason was to allow the male birds to rear the young (as will be discussed).
From studies into both remains of eggs and modern birds that live in similar environments like the cassowary, information can be extrapolated from their breeding habits. South Island Giant Moas are believed to have built nests in hollow trees or rocks for structures for their eggs and reused them over many years, likely meaning they bred as isolated pairs rather than colonies. Similar to modern-day Emus or Cassowaries.
The eggs would have weighed over 8lbs when fresh, and females would have laid a single or two eggs in a shallow bed of dirt and plant material. The father would be responsible for caring for the eggs and, later, the chicks.
The eggs had the thinnest shell of any bird relative to size, being only 1.4mm thin. It has been suggested that, like modern emus or rhea, the male would wrap his long neck around the eggs to keep them insulated in the temperate environment to avoid breaking them. Once the baby hatched, like modern ratites, they would have been precocial, able to run, see, and eat immediately. However, they would've depended on their parents, primarily the father, for protection. It would have taken around 3-5 years to reach sexual maturity. However, their social behavior means they would not have branched out and formed their territory until they were much older, perhaps up to 10 years. After they had their own territory, they were long-lived birds. Capable of living for over half a century.
Fossil finds from Bell Hill Vineyard, and Pyramid Valley indicate the populations of these giant moas were largely mature adults. The time it took to reach sexual maturity, form their territory, and start breeding would ultimately be these magnificent birds' downfall.
Predation of these birds was rare, given the size they reached. However, they were only partially free of predators. Adzebills, distant cousins of rails likely hunted Moa chicks, and even giant moa Babies were on the menu. Wekas could have intruded on nests and picked at the eggs too.
The most iconic predator was not a creature that dwelled on the ground. The Haast's Eagle was the largest bird of prey and the largest Apex Predator on the South Island. Even a massive female giant moa was not invincible to these birds. A fossil pelvis which was described in 2008 consisted of a giant moa found at Glencrieff Swamp dated to around 10,000 B.C.E. shows scraping impact marks on a Moas pelvis. It's believed these giant eagles swooped in grabbed the moa by the pelvis and then crushed the neck using their massive foot equipped with talons the size of Tiger's Claws.
Extinction:
These magnificent birds are a recent extinction on the twin islands (relatively speaking). This was an animal that was not a relic from a million, 100,000 or even 10,000 years ago. These animals died out at the latest, 600 years ago. When Richard III was on the English Throne and the printing press was beginning production, the Māori was slaughtering these awesome animals. Likely, the Giant Moa was already gone.
Pollack, who was one of the first to see the fossils of moa, noted that he had received reports from both Māori tribesmen and even Sealers "that species of "Struthio" (the Dinornithiformes hadn't been classified yet) still existed in remote parts of the South Island". While possible some Moas could have persisted till the 1800s, they were not Giant Moas. Perhaps, IF they were Moas, they would've been heavy-footed or little bush moas.
In the midden pits, giant moa remains are relatively low in numbers. The little bush moa and heavy-footed moa are the most common. With their larger size and less active lifestyle, it's likely that these animals were hunted and killed first. They were probably lower in terms of population and were more elusive. However, their elusive nature could not protect them from their extinction.
Bernard Heuvelmans, known as "the father of modern cryptozoology," is also lesser known for tracking down living moas. While his efforts were fruitless, he did get one thing out of his endeavor.
To track and discover these animals, he had to learn about them. Best way to do that? He deduced that the best moa experts were ones who dealt with them.
Or at least whose ancestors dealt with them. In the 60s, he talked to many oral historians and Māori elders who oversaw keeping records of their ancestors' lives solely through oral methods. Among the things they recorded were Moa hunts.
This is actually a period noted by historians and paleontologists known as the "Archaic" or "Moa Hunting" period of Māori History.
Obviously, the most common tactic would be to steal eggs from moa nests. However, to get to them, meant taking out the parents, and that meant hunting the big game, the adults. Various tribes would employ snares and nooses made from flax. Trapped and unable to use their powerful limbs to kick and hurt the hunters, the Māori would jab at their torsos with spears, and/or they would knock them to the ground and club them to death to finish them off.

Probably most gruesome of all would be taking advantage of their own biology by using gastroliths. They would heat a stone in fire, a Moa would come along, the hunters would throw the stone towards them. Then attracted to the motion and fresh stone in front of them, they would gulp the stone down, resulting in searing pain. While in agony, they would spear and club the bird to death. When the Moa numbers were at their lowest, Māori would use fire to burn down forests to drive some of the last of these giant birds out of the woodlands and into killing fields.
While some moa species persisted into around 1500AD, specifically in the highlands, the last of the Giant Moas are believed to have been wiped out around a hundred years after the Māori arrived in 1400AD. Largely because they were confined to the South Island's lower areas.
These iconic animals are a symbol of New Zealand's past. A time when giants roamed the twin islands and tragically these animals are gone.
___________________________________________________________________________________________
YOP. I'm alive y'all.
I've been busy these past few weeks. Had to get some other animals up and running for Past Meets Present, got promoted at work, and been focusing a lot on PMP.
I decided to have my friend DH on ZT2 TRT give me the Giant Moas for Past Meets Present. I just never was a fan of my old version of moa. Plus, my old version of extinct animal profiles is massively out of date, and I wanted to redo the profile with new info I found.
Little bit of an announcement too, I decided to redo PMP Ep1 and 2 after I am done with season 1. I'll do it while in production with season 2. So, look forward to seeing these guys properly utilized in a redone version of episode 1.
Why am I doing this? Well, allow me to restate something from the old profile:
Personal Angle: The FIRST paleo-documentary I ever watched live on TV featured the South Island Giant Moa.
I was around 6 years old and on Animal Planet was Land of Lost Monsters. An edited version of Monsters We Met for American Audiences (why it was edited and replaced the awesome voice of the late, great Ian Holmes with some default American voice I will NEVER know).
Knowing such a huge bird existed captivated me. Yeah, I was into dinosaurs since I was like three years old as every kid was. Hell, I also consider the Field Museum my second home and was alive when T.rex mania hit the Windy City. But as far as I remember, I never saw such a unique depiction of long-dead extinct animals resurrected so realistically. The idea of giant birds like the moa and Haast's Eagle, which were around so recently and knowing that an eagle could have hunted not just Moas but possibly humans made 6-year-old me OBSESSED with extinct life. Following that, I got WWD, Ballad of Big Al, and WWB and I like to think this bird fascinated me with prehistoric life.
Now, today, has the documentary aged well?
No, the Haast's Eagle was a Harpy Eagle upscaled with CGI, and the moa was just an ostrich with moa proportions and had the wrong neck posture. Plus, the documentary portrays the Māori as selectively hunting individual moas. Literally, all they did was walk up to the large moa, put a rope around it so it couldn't get away, and then just one jab of the spear, and it went down. Now, granted, they had a budget, but if they wanted to show a more accurate method of moa killing why not just have the scene of Māori burn down the brush to drive them out of the brush. That, at least, was accurate.
Furthermore, I think the large female was "looking after" the egg. And all they did was wait for the moa to move off and then the Māori hunting party took the giant egg. I don't know of any Ratite who just abandons the egg to go and feed isolated in NZ or not. No, the male would look after it, and they'd have to go through him to get the egg. But still, its inaccuracies while they are there do not change the fact that I'm grateful for such an amazing documentary existing to get me interested in paleontology.
I've got all 9 species of moa and may do more of them in the future so look forward to that. In the meantime, I'll see you guys later!
Giant Moa by Demon Hunter. Currently being worked on, IDK when it'll be released. Please, DO NOT ask him or me for it.