The diets of moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes)

2020/02/07 by Jamie R. Wood, Sarah J. Richardson, Matt S. McGlone +1 · 2 citations
Social Sciences · Earth and Planetary Sciences · Environmental Science · #Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Isotope Analysis in Ecology

paper · pdf · doi:10.20417/nzjecol.44.3

openalex publication_date 2020/02/07 · openalex created_date 2020/02/14 · openalex updated_date 2026/01/13

Abstract

For tens of millions of years the ratite moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) were the largest herbivores in New Zealand’s terrestrial ecosystems. In occupying this ecological niche for such a long time, moa undoubtedly had a strong influence on the evolution of New Zealand’s flora and played important functional roles within ecosystems. The extinction of moa in the 15th century ce therefore marked a significant event in New Zealand’s biological history, not only in terms of biodiversity loss, but in the loss of an evolutionarily and ecologically distinct order of birds.

Citations

• Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution
• Extreme reversed sexual size dimorphism in the extinct New Zealand moa Dinornis
• A high-precision chronology for the rapid extinction of New Zealand moa (Aves, Dinornithiformes)
• Dating the late prehistoric dispersal of Polynesians to New Zealand using the commensal Pacific rat
• Las Normas Internacionales de Contabilidad y el marco contable español
• The evolutionary history of the extinct ratite moa and New Zealand Neogene paleogeography
• Miocene mystacinids (Chiroptera, Noctilionoidea) indicate a long history for endemic bats in New Zealand
• Identification, Classification, and Growth of Moa Chicks (Aves: Dinornithiformes) from the Genus Euryapteryx
• Plant structural defences against browsing birds: a legacy of New Zealand's extinct moas

Cited by

• Geographic and ecological segregation in an extinct guild of flightless birds: New Zealand’s moa
• North Island giant moa [wikipedia]

Related

• The evolutionary history of the extinct ratite moa and New Zealand Neogene paleogeography
• Geographic and ecological segregation in an extinct guild of flightless birds: New Zealand’s moa
• Moa’s Ark: Miocene fossils reveal the great antiquity of moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) in Zealandia. In Proceedings of the VII International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, ed. W.E. Boles and T.H. Worthy
• Moa Citings
• Extinct New Zealand megafauna were not in decline before human colonization