North Island giant moa

North Island giant moa
Temporal range: Late Pleistocene– Holocene
Skeleton, Natural History Museum of London
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Infraclass: Palaeognathae
Order: †Dinornithiformes
Family: †Dinornithidae
Genus: †Dinornis
Species:
†D. novaezealandiae
Binomial name
†Dinornis novaezealandiae
Synonyms
List
  • Dinornis giganteus Owen, 1844
  • Dinornis struthoides Owen, 1844
  • Owenia struthoides (Gray 1855)
  • Dinornis ingens Owen, 1844
  • Dinornis gigas Owen, 1846 spelling lapse
  • Moa ingens (Owen 1844) Reichenbach, 1850
  • Movia ingens (Owen 1844) Reichenbach, 1850
  • Dinornis gracilis Owen, 1855
  • Dinornis dromioides Oliver 1930 non Owen 1846
  • Dinornis hercules Oliver 1949
  • Dinornis gazella Oliver 1949
  • Dinornis excelsus Hutton, 1891
  • Dinornis firmus Hutton, 1891
  • Tylopteryx struthoides (Owen 1844) Hutton, 1891
  • Palapteryx ingens (Owen 1844) Haast 1869

The North Island giant moa (Dinornis novaezealandiae) is an extinct moa in the genus Dinornis, known in Māori as kuranui.[4] Even though it might have walked with a lowered posture, standing upright, it would have been the tallest bird ever to exist, with a height estimated up to 3.6 metres (12 ft).[citation needed]

  1. ^ Brands, S. (2008)
  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. ^ Birds of New Zealand[not specific enough to verify]
  4. ^ Doyle, Trent (15 November 2023). "Scientists reveal fossilised moa footprints in Otago are at least 3.6 million years old". Newshub. Retrieved 23 February 2024.