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.