Moas

Habitats

The following habitats are found across the Moas distribution range. Find out more about these environments, what it takes to live there and what else inhabits them.

Broadleaf forest
Broadleaf forests are the dominant habitat of the UK and most of temperate northern Europe. There's little left of Britain's ancient wildwood, but isolated pockets of oak, beech and mixed deciduous and evergreen woodlands are scattered across the continent, and dictate its biodiversity.

Behaviours

Discover what these behaviours are and how different plants and animals use them.

• Acoustic communication
• Herbivorous
• Moulting
• Egg layer
• Adapted to running

What their world was like

Ice age
The last ice age hasn't ended, the climate has just warmed up a bit causing the ice sheets to retreat. When the ice was more extensive, our climate was very different.

About

The moa were nine species (in six genera) of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about 3.6 m (12 ft) in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about 230 kg (510 lb).

Moa belong to the ratite group in the order Dinornithiformes. The nine species of moa were the only wingless birds, lacking even the vestigial wings which all other ratites have. They were the dominant herbivores in New Zealand's forest, shrubland and subalpine ecosystems for thousands of years, and until the arrival of the Māori were hunted only by the Haast's Eagle. It is generally considered that most, if not all, species of moa died out due to overhunting by the Māori, by 1400 AD, and habitat decline before European colonisation and settlement.

Read more at Wikipedia