Moa lecture and live dinosaur dissection!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Giant_Haasts_eagle_attacking_New_Zealand_moa.jpg 

Perth-based science education centre Scitech is hosting a fascinating series of dinosaur-inspired lectures from next week, including one on New Zealand's crypto enigma, the Moa:

31 July - Time travelling with ancient DNA
Dr Mike Bunce from Murdoch University will tell us about his groundbreaking research extracting DNA from extinct birds. From the fossilised poo of the twelve foot moa bird of New Zealand, to eggshell fragments from the massive Madagascan elephant bird, ancient DNA can reveal more about what these creatures ate, how they evolved and how they became extinct.

4 September - Why is a duck a dinosaur?
Join us for a live dinosaur dissection with Curtin University’s Associate Professor Kate Trinajstic. Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops haven't walked the planet for 65 million years, but are dinosaurs all extinct? The 2010 Prime Minister’s prize winner will dissect a barbecue duck to show that avian dinosaurs are alive and well today, and discuss her own research on fossil fish.

24 September - Ancient volcanoes and asteroids: Where did the dinosaurs go?
What dramatic change occurred nearly 66 million years ago to cause the mass extinction of the dinosaurs? Curtin University geochronologist Dr Fred Jourdan will guide us through the myths and facts of volcanoes and asteroid impacts, and show us how several factors probably contributed to the dinosaurs’ demise.

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Time: Doors open 6.00pm, lecture 6.30-7.30pm
Location: Lotterywest Science Theatre, Scitech
Cost: $5 per person, or free to Scitrekker members.
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The fee includes time in Scitech’s Explore-a-saurus exhibition which will be open before and after the lecture (6pm-8pm) Bookings are essential by following the Trybooking links at http://www.scitech.org.au/events/events/lecturesaurus-series.html.

Moa searcher's library up for auction

A collection of more than 600 rare books dubbed the "last great private library" in New Zealand goes under the hammer in Auckland this week. The books, collected by Auckland naturalist and scholar Arthur Pycroft, who died in 1971, include a complete set of Cook's Voyages, published in the 1770s, a first edition of the first novel published in New Zealand, Taranaki: A Tale of the War by Henry Stoney (1861), and a two-volume set of Captain Scott's journals from his last expedition, published in 1914.

Pycroft was a member of the "Moa Searching Committee", which involved searching for skeletons at various sites in New Zealand, and a newly discovered species of petrel was named in his honour: Pterodroma pycrofti. Read more at CFZ New Zealand.

Moa bones and ancient poo dazzles researchers

A combination of team work, community funding and a Waimate archeologist skilled in the field of skeletons and anatomy, has meant the town has a moa exhibition that has impressed some of New Zealand's moa research elite.

The Waimate Historical Museum exhibition which runs until November, received a visit from a group of top moa experts, including from Te Papa, who were on their way to a key moa site at St Bathans. Intending to stay only five minutes, instead they stayed 90.

The exhibition is special to Waimate because of the Kapua moa excavations of 1895. Kapua, at one end of the Waimate gorge, was the resting place of 800 moa skeletons.

The giant birds, naive about humans, were a good package of easy meat to a hunter. Big adults were hunted out first, cutting out the breeders. Younger ones followed, before they could breed. Moa eggs were also being eaten.

Interestingly, museums all over the world still have moa skeletons posed with their necks stretching straight up. Now knowing more about anatomy and bones, researchers know their necks curved horizontally, in line with their backs.

The exhibition features a bone from the Kapua dig which still has its hand-written metal tag attached. Other items come from museums further afield. The Canterbury Museum's contribution was halted, days before it was to be transported, by the February earthquake. Fortunately, Otago Museum was able to step in.

Interestingly, Wikipedia has the number of moa species at 11, but researchers now know that there were nine, adapted to different environments such as the swamp, the uplands, the forest or the coast and climates as differing as the West Coast from the East.

Moa bone washes up on NZ beach

It's slightly old news now, but this story demonstrates how sometimes rare and unusual things will literally wash up at your feet!

A beachcombing walk on Onetangi Beach after the first big storm in late January 2011 yielded a rare find for young Waiheke Primary student Chris Anderson.

The seven-year-old discovered what turned out to be the lower leg bone of a small moa among the huge number of horse mussels washed up on the beach.

Read the whole story over at CFZ NZ.

From bird to brew - Moa Beer

It's not quite as rare as its name-sake (pictured above being attached by a giant Haast's Eagle), but Moa Beer is increasing in popularity and destined to enjoy a much wider distribution.

The Kiwi company is already New Zealand's biggest exporter of beer to the US and elsewhere, including Singapore, Denmark, Vietnam, Brazil and Antarctica.

Naturalists might be interested to know every year the company sponsors the Moa Easter Bunny Hunt, held to assist New Zealand farmers plagued by rabbits. The latest event saw nearly 23,000 rabbits killed, plus 979 hares, eight pigs, countless stoats and a goat.

Too late to help out the Moa, but it does make for an impressive beer label.

Moa mysteries of NZ

Cryptozoologist Dr Karl Shuker explores the mystery of New Zealand's extinct (?) Moa, a large flightless bird about 12ft high that was hunted by the Maoris as a food source.

"One of the first mystery bird reports that I can ever remember reading appeared in A New Dictionary of Birds (1964), edited by A. Landsborough Thompson...The detailed moa entry, written by highly-acclaimed New Zealand ornithologist Dr Robert A. Falla, contained a section discussing the possible survival of Megalapteryx, one of the smallest moas (often dubbed the upland moa), into the 19th Century on South Island."

Read the whole fascinating entry here.

Book charts NZ Moa's survival

The start of 2010 heralded a new three-volume series on the Moa, New Zealand's extinct flightless bird, from author Bruce Spittle via Paua Press.

Bruce presents a compelling catalogue of sightings that seemingly support the continued existence of one of New Zealand's most enigmatic creatures, the Moa.

Believed extinct - its fate sealed by the colonising Maori population and its only other predator, Haast's Eagle, itself extinct - the Moa was one of a handful of unique birds and mammals that called the two island continents home.

You can read the first chapter of Bruce's books here.

Bruce's interest in Moa sightings began following a claim of a sighting in the Craigieburn Forest Park in the South Island of New Zealand on January 20, 1993. He writes:

"Initially I was happy to accept the explanation that the report was a publicity stunt by the local publican but after hearing him explain on the radio that his report was serious I was not so sure. When I read further that another member of the party was recovering from a heart attack, a life situation when taking part in a prank might not have a high priority, and that the third member of the party wanted to get a job eventually with the Department of Conservation rather than a reputation for being frivolous, I had some doubt about whether it really was a hoax. As I lived in Dunedin, about one day’s travel from the site of the claim, I felt I should go there to check it out and spent five days, 10–14 February 1993, in the area. 

"I saw no evidence of moas but found a report in a hut book claiming that two moas had been seen in the same valley on 19 May 1992. This was an intriguing coincidence. The information about the 1993 claim was aired in the media, the general opinion emerged that it did not involve moas, and the Department of Conservation called off plans to make a search of the area. Later I established that the 1992 claim was a hoax. 

"Even in the cryptozoological community, the 1993 sighting was generally dismissed as a hoax and the currently accepted view remains that although occasional moa “sightings” are still claimed to this day, they are becoming fewer and all have been discredited.

"However, after I talked to the three people involved in the 1993 sighting and made further examinations of the area where the sighting claim was made, I found there was no definitive evidence that a hoax or misidentification was involved and that, improbable though it seemed, the sighting of a moa as a cause for the claim could not be excluded. "

You can buy the three volumes of Moa Sightings by Bruce Spittle here.

Rare extinct NZ Moa skull listed on TradeMe

A rare skull of Moa, a species of bird which became extinct thousands of years ago, has been put for sale on the internet by a New Zealand man who claims the artefact was discovered by his father in the 1950s.

The seller, Glen Brady of Hamilton, who trades under the name 'construct11' on the online trading website Trade Me, said the skull was discovered by his father in the 1950s while working for a bridge company in the Waitomo area of New Zealand.

'My father died a few months ago. He left the skull to me. It has been in a cupboard for many years,' Brady was quoted as saying by the New Zealand Herald.

The skull, belonging to the extinct Anomalopteryx didiformis, is 145 mm long, 80 mm wide and 65 mm high. The sale ends at 12.51 p.m. Friday.

Brady, who expects the skull to fetch him $10,000, said he was selling it to raise money for buying a house.

'I'm loathe to sell it. I'd like to keep it but it is the difference between getting into a house and not getting into a house,' he said. 'It is a very treasured possession, but it is a possession that will possibly change my life.'

He consulted Webb's auction house managing director Neil Campbell prior to placing the auction, who told him the artefact was very rare. Brady was not sure how much the skull was worth.

'I personally don't think $10,000 is too bad,' he said. 'I've never seen a moa skull on Trade Me before.'

Brady said he was waiting for written confirmation of the authenticity of the skull from Te Papa palaeontologist Alan Tennyson.

Te Papa spokeswoman Jane Keig said most of the museum's moa remains are not on display, the museum does have two skeletons on display and doesn't have the space to display all its moa remains.

She said the museum had around 100 full and partial moa skulls. 'The primary purpose of the artefacts is for scientific research,' Keig said.

To date, the skull has failed to sell.