Man-eating New Zealand bird was ‘killing machine’
A man-eating bird capable of swooping out of the sky and killing a human being with its talons actually existed, scientists in New Zealand investigating the Maori legend have confirmed.
Scientists had previously believed that an extinct bird with a three-metre wing span known as Haast’s eagle whose remains were first discovered in New Zealand swamp deposits in the 1870s by Sir Julius von Haast was a scavenging species because of its vulture-like bill.
But new research on a skeleton of the bird, which may have only become extinct around 500 years ago, suggests its pelvis was strong enough to deliver a killer blow with talons the size of tiger claws at speeds of up to 80 kilometres an hour.
That would suggest that the bird is actually Te Hokioi, a giant black-and-white predator spoken of in Maoiri mythology.
It was certainly capable of swooping down and taking a child,” said Paul Scofield, curator of vertebrate zoology at Canterbury Museum.
“They had the ability to not only strike with their talons but to close the talons and put them through quite solid objects such as a pelvis. It was designed as a killing machine.”
Because New Zealand has no native land mammals, birds were able to develop some of the evolutionary characteristics acquired by large mammals in less isolated parts of the world.
“Haast’s eagle wasn’t just the equivalent of a giant predatory bird,” Scofield said. “It was the equivalent of a lion.”
Scientists believe the bird died out because humans exterminated its main source of food, a flightless bird called the giant moa, after their arrival on the islands around 1,000 years ago.