Pachyornis mappini

Mappin's moas were endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. (Anderson, 1989; Baker et al., 2005)

Mappin's moas were widespread throughout North Island habitats such as open forests, scrublands, and grasslands. (Anderson, 1989; Atkinson and Greenwood, 1989)

Mappin's moas were large ratites, with a height to the shoulder of approximately 67 cm and a head height that reached about 97 cm. Female moas in the genus Dinornis could be significantly larger than their male counterparts, which may have been true of Pachyornis species as well. (Anderson, 1989; Turvey, Green, and Holdaway, 2005)

A fascinating feature of all moas was that they did not have wings, not even vestigial remnants. It is also interesting to note that moas took much longer than extant birds to reach adult body size, with development periods ranging from three to nine years. (Anderson, 1989; Turvey, Green, and Holdaway, 2005)

The bill of Pachyornis elaphatopus closely resembles that of Pachyornis mappini and features a deeply grooved and pointed mandible. This characteristic of all members of the genus Pachyornis suggests that they may have had the most powerful cutting mandibles of any moa. (Anderson, 1989; Turvey, Green, and Holdaway, 2005)

Before humans began hunting moas they had no natural predators. This lack of predation probably contributed to their long lifespan of over 30 years. Survivorship increased as moas aged and grew, as they could browse for food throughout their height range. (Anderson, 1989)

Since all species of moa are extinct, there is little data on their behavior. Other, large ratites are proficient at moving about land quickly, however it is thought that moas traveled only tens of kilometers throughout their lifetimes. Moas were specialized for eating woody, fibrous material low in nutrition, requiring them to forage almost constantly. (Anderson, 1989)

Since all species of moas are extinct, it is unclear how they communicated. Other large ratites may offer comparison. It is possible that moas used vocal communication in order to attract mates. The evolution of mimicry among plants that were subject to moa herbivory suggests that moas used vision to find food plants. (Anderson, 1989; Atkinson and Greenwood, 1989)

Based on the gizzard content of subfossil moas, it appears that they ingested stones and pebbles to help digest the seeds, twigs, fruit, and leaves that they ate. Moas were not well adapted to toxins in plants; they relied more heavily on eating fibrous materials such as twigs, rather than fruits and leaves which held more of the anti-herbivory defense mechanisms. Surviving on less poisonous, less nutritious, fibrous foods required moas to have a diverse, high volume diet. (Anderson, 1989)

Other than humans, there are no known predators for any species of moa. In fact, there was little competition that faced moas prior to human settlement in New Zealand.

There is evidence of a coevolutionary relationship between moas and the plants that they ate. Moa food plants developed physical defenses and mimicry to avoid predation. Chemical defenses also evolved in some plants as a way to reduce herbivory from moas, other plants developed systems of mimicry to emulate the appearance of plants that moas would not eat. The use of spines as a defense against grazing is used among Aciphylla plants, with populations of these plants having reduced spines in areas that would have been inaccessible to moas. (Atkinson and Greenwood, 1989)

The height of moas also contributed to the roles that they played in their ecosystem. Since the moas could browse for food throughout their height range, trees and other woody plants had selection pressure to grow large enough, quickly enough, so that all of the saplings would not be decimated by the continuously browsing moas. (Atkinson and Greenwood, 1989)

There are no known adverse affects of Pachyornis mappini on humans.

All species of moas were major food sources for the Polynesian settlers of New Zealand, ultimately resulting in their being hunted to extinction. (Diamond, 2000)

Pachyornis mappini went extinct after the colonization of New Zealand by humans. Polynesian islanders began colonizing the islands of New Zealand in the 13th century A.D. and hunted P. mappini to extinction by the time European explorers first arrived in 1642 A.D. It is suggested that these moas were hunted to extinction within one hundred years of human colonization since moas were easy prey and took nearly five years to reach reproductive maturity. (Diamond, 2000; Holdaway and Jacomb, 2000)