| Brief Description |
Parts of a tarsometatarsus or foot bone, made up of several fused bones. It had three toes pointing forward and a small one at the back. Moa had short stout foot bones and short strides. Collected by Taylor Brown from a tomo or sinkhole on Motukawa Land Co Ltd farm, Moawhango Valley Road near Taihape in December 2000, and donated by landowner Warren Plimmer.
Mantell’s Moa (Pachyornis geranoides) was one of the smallest moa species, just 1 m high at the shoulder and weighing 20 to 30 kg. It preferred to live around the edges of swamps and forests. Like all moa species, it was wiped out by human hunting about 500 years ago.
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