Crested moa

Crested moa
Temporal range: Late Holocene
Pachyornis australis bones in Ngarua Caves
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Infraclass: Palaeognathae
Order: †Dinornithiformes
Family: †Emeidae
Genus: †Pachyornis
Species:
†P. australis
Binomial name
†Pachyornis australis
(Oliver, 1949)[1][2]
Synonyms
List
  • Pachyornis elephantopus Cracraft 1976 non (Owen 1856) Lydekker 1891
  • Mesopteryx sp. β Parker 1895

The crested moa (Pachyornis australis) is an extinct species of moa. It is one of the 9 known species of moa to have existed.[3]

Moa are grouped together with emus, ostriches, kiwi, cassowaries, rheas, and tinamous in the clade Palaeognathae. Some of the species of this group are flightless and lacks a keel on their sternum.[4] The name crested moa is due to pits being found in their skulls, suggesting they had crests of long feathers.[3][5] These cranial pits are also found occasionally in Dinornis, Anomalopteryx, and other Pachyornis species.[6]

  1. ^ Oliver 1949, pp. 70–74
  2. ^ Checklist Committee Ornithological Society of New Zealand (2010). "Checklist-of-Birds of New Zealand, Norfolk and Macquarie Islands and the Ross Dependency Antarctica" (PDF). Te Papa Press. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  3. ^ a b Berentson, Quinn (2012). Moa: the life and death of New Zealand's legendary bird. Craig Potton Publishing. ISBN 9781877517846.
  4. ^ Davies 2003, pp. 95–98
  5. ^ Tennyson, Alan J. D. (2006). Extinct birds of New Zealand. Paul Martinson. Wellington, N.Z.: Te Papa Press. p. 26. ISBN 978-0-909010-21-8. OCLC 80016906.
  6. ^ Olliver 2005