Haast's eagle
|
|
| Haast's Eagle Conservation status: Extinct (c. 1500 CE) | ||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Missing image Giant_Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg Artist's rendition of Haast's eagle attacking moa Artist's rendition of Haast's eagle attacking moa | ||||||||||||||
| Scientific classification | ||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||
| Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
| Harpagornis moorei Haast, 1872 |
The Haast's eagle (Harpagornis moorei) was a massive New Zealand eagle. After the extinction of the teratorns, the Haast's eagle was the largest bird of prey in the world. It is believed that Maori called it Pouakai or Hokioi.
Female Haast's eagles weighed 10 to 14 kilograms (22 to 30 pounds), and males weighed 9 to 10 kilograms. They had a wingspan of about 3 meters, which is short for a bird of that weight, but permitted them to hunt in forests. It preyed on large, flightless birds species including moa up to 15 times its weight. It attacked moa at speeds up to 80 kilometers per hour (50 mph), seizing a moa by the pelvis with the talons of one foot and killing it with a blow to the head or neck with a talon of the other foot. In the absence of other large predators or scavengers, a Haast's eagle could have fed on a single large kill over a number of days.
Early human settlers in New Zealand (Maori arrived about 1000 years ago) also preyed heavily on large, flightless birds and hunted some of them, including all the moa species, to extinction. The Haast's eagle became extinct along with its prey. It may also have been hunted itself by humans: a large, fast bird of prey that specialized in hunting large bipeds may have been perceived as a threat by Maori.
Until recent human colonisation, the only mammals found on New Zealand were a handful of bat species. Free from this competition, birds occupied all positions in the New Zealand animal ecology. Moa filled a grazing niche occupied elsewhere by deer or cattle, and the Haast's eagle occupied the same niche as carnivorous hunters such as wolves, leopards or tigers. For this reason, they have sometimes been termed leopard eagles.
DNA analysis has shown that it is most closely related to the small Little Eagle and Booted Eagle, and not, as previously thought, to the large Wedge-tailed Eagle. In fact, Harpagornis moorei is more closely related to the Little Eagle and Booted Eagle, than these are to other members of the genus Hieraaetus. Thus, Harpagornis moorei should probably be reclassified as Hieraaetus moorei, pending confirmation. H. moorei may have diverged from these small eagles as recently as 700,000 to 1.8 million years ago. Its increase in weight by 10 to 15 times in that period is the greatest and fastest evolutionary increase in weight of any known vertebrate. This was made possible by the presence of large prey and the absence of competition from other large predators.
This bird was first classified by Julius von Haast, who named it Harpagornis moorei after George Henry Moore, the owner of the Glenmark Estate where the bones of the bird had been found.
See also
External links
- New Zealand Giant Eagle (http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/wildfacts/factfiles/3044.shtml)
- Pouakai, the Haast Eagle (http://www.nzbirds.com/Harpogornis.html)
- Ancient DNA Provides New Insights into the Evolutionary History of New Zealand's Extinct Giant Eagle (http://www.plosbiology.org/plosonline/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0030009)bg:Орел на Хааст
de:Haastadler pl:Orzeł Haasta pt:guia de Haast wa:Harpagornisse