Bird of the Week!

This week, we continue our series of extinct Birds of the Week. We now move from the Dodos of the Indian Ocean, to the Moa in the Pacific. Moa were native to New Zealand, where they were both hunted and raised as livestock by the indigenous Maori tribe for years. It is believed that overhunting by the Maori led to the eventual extinction of the Moa around the 14th century.

Rather than describing a single species, Moa actually refers to nine distinct species of bird, falling into six genera. Moa are perhaps best known for their incredible size. Though they had gone extinct before being scientifically documented, estimates based on bone structure put the Moa at approximately 12 feet tall and close to 500 pounds, with the females often being larger than the males. Moa are also unique in that as chicks, they are simultaneously super frickin cute and really weird and ugly looking.