Before human settlement 700 years ago, New Zealand had no terrestrial mammals, apart from three species of bats. Instead, about 250 species of bird dominated the terrestrial ecosystem. At the top of the food chain was the extinct Haast's eagle. With a 2.5-3m wingspan weighing in at between 10 and 14 kg, Haast's eagle was about 30-40% heavier than the largest living bird of prey (the harpy eagle of Central and South America) and was approaching the upper weight limit of powered flight. Haast's eagle is the only eagle known to have been the top predator in a major terrestrial ecosystem, hunting moa, the giant herbivorous birds of New Zealand, weighing up to 200 kg. Evidence of eagle strikes remain, as holes and rents torn into the bones of moa, which show that the eagle struck from the side, gripped the moa's pelvic area with one foot, and killed with a single strike by the other foot to the neck or head. The eagle is thought to be the Hokioi of Maori oral history and is recorded in rock art, and artifacts shaped from eagle bone prove that the eagle co-existed with early Polynesians. However, there is no evidence that humans were targets for this huge aerial predator.
In the research paper, New Zealand researchers at Oxford University's Ancient Biomolecules Center run by Professor Alan Cooper extracted DNA from fossil eagle bones about 2000 years old. Dr Michael Bunce, who performed th
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Contact: Paul Ocampo
pocampo@plos.org
415-624-1224
Public Library of Science
3-Jan-2005