North Island giant moa

North Island giant moa
Skeleton, Natural History Museum of London
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Superorder: Paleognathae
Order: Struthioniformes
Family: Dinornithidae
Genus: Dinornis
Species: D. novaezealandiae
(Owen 1843)
Binomial name
Dinornis novaezealandiae
(Owen 1843)[1][2]
Synonyms

The North Island giant moa (Dinornis novaezealandiae) is one of two extinct moa in the genus Dinornis.

Taxonomy

Restoration by Frohawk
Skull at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin

It is a ratite and a member of the order Struthioniformes. The Struthioniformes are flightless birds with a sternum without a keel. They also have a distinctive palate. The origin of these birds is becoming clearer as it is now believed that early ancestors of these birds were able to fly and flew to the southern areas where they have been found.[3]

Habitat

This particular moa lived on the North Island of New Zealand, and lived in the lowlands (shrublands, grasslands, dunelands, and forests).[3]

Footnotes

  1. Brands, S. (2008)
  2. Checklist Committee Ornithological Society of New Zealand (2010). "Checklist-of-Birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands and the Ross Dependancy Antarctica" (PDF). Te Papa Press. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  3. 1 2 Davies, S. J. J. F. (2003)

References

External links


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