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Moas were large flightless birds that lived on the north and south islands of New Zealand.
They are related to emu, ostraches,
rhea and kiwi. The largest
was the giant moa which is two meters high at the back
and could stretch up to 3 meters high when foraging for food,
the smallest was about the size of a turkey. Moas arethought to of lived in forests
because of the shape of their bills and also the presents of gizzards stones, which
is a stone used to digest food. It
shows they had diet which was high in fiber.
It was Richard Owen from the Natural History Museum who first identified Moa bones
in 1839, and he did this by comparing
these bones with the bones of other large animals.
This is a leg bone of a giant Moa,
it was discovered by Charles Curtis and brought back to England, to
his brother William Curtis, the founder of the Curtis Museum in Alton.
It is thought there were about nine species of moa. There are still occasionly reported sightings of moa.
Most of these are in the late 19th century
especially in isolated area. Other sightings have been reported more recently
in the nineteen nineties.