Brief Description |
A right femur or thigh bone, one of the strongest bones in a bird’s body. A moa’s femur and knee were held almost horizontally, concealed by body feathers. This bone was collected during a Museum excavation in 1936–37 from a mud hole near Makirikiri, Whanganui. It has a drill hole from DNA sampling for a Massey University research project.
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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