Meet the World’s Tallest Bird That Was Too Big to Survive
The giant moa wasn’t an example of perfect proportions, but it was impressive in size. It could look down on an ostrich, the largest bird living today, and it was significantly heavier. It was this size that led to the moa’s downfall.
5 min readJun 4, 2024
In New Zealand, an archipelago that remained isolated from the rest of the world for a very long time, a peculiar and largely endemic fauna evolved. There were no mammals on the islands (except for bats) and no land predators. Therefore, birds occupied an important place in the ecosystem. Many of them lost the ability to fly, such as the kiwi, takahe, and the kakapo parrot. Among the bird family, the most distinguished were the members of the order Dinornithiformes — the giant moas, Dinornis robustus. These were the tallest birds in the world.
