EVOLUTION OF THE MOA AND THEIR EFFECT ON THE NEW-ZEALAND FLORA

It is 150 years since Sir Richard Owen announced the former existence of large flightless ostrich-like birds in New Zealand based on a fragm ent of femur presented to him in England. Numerous studies of this ext inct group of giant birds, now known by the Polynesian (plural) name ' moa', have provided much information about their effects on the flora, their recent extinction, and the evolutionary history of New Zealand and its endemic biota. Significant revision of moa taxonomy and ecolog y continues, and recent molecular phylogenetic analyses have stimulate d new hypotheses about moa evolution.