Eastern moa: Difference between revisions

Eastern Moa
Conservation status
	Prehistoric
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Superorder:	Paleognathae
Order:	Struthioniformes
Family:	Dinornithidae
Genus:	Emeus; Reichenbach, 1852
Species:	E. crassus
Binomial name
	Emeus crassus; (Owen, 1846)
Synonyms
	Dinornis crassus Owen, 1846; Dinornis casuarinus Owen, 1846; Dinornis huttonii Owen, 1846 (male); Emeus casuarinus Oliver, 1930; Emeus huttonii Oliver, 1930 (male);

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Emeus crassus is an extinct species of ratite bird belonging to the moa family. It is nowadays recognized as the only species of the genus Emeus.

Emeus was of average size, standing 150 cm (5 ft) tall. Like other moa, it had vestigal wings, hair-like feathers (beige in this case), a long neck and large, powerful legs. Its feet were exceptionally wide compared to other moas, making it a very slow creature. Because of this, human colonists hunted Emeus into extinction with relative ease. Like almost all moa, it was gone by the year 1500.

It has been long suspected that the "species" described as Emeus huttonii and E. crassus were males and females, respectively, of a single species. This has been confirmed by analysis for sex-specific genetic markers of DNA extracted from bone material; the females of E. crassus were 15-25% larger than males (Huynen et al., 2003). This phenomenon — reverse size dimorphism — is not uncommon amongst ratites, being also very pronounced in kiwis.

References

Huynen, Leon J.; Millar, Craig D.; Scofield, R. P. & Lambert, David M. (2003): Nuclear DNA sequences detect species limits in ancient moa. Nature 425(6954): 175-178. DOI:10.1038/nature01838 HTML abstract Supplementary information
Owen, Richard (1846): [Description of Dinornis crassus]. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London 1846: 46.
Reichenbach, Heinrich Gottlieb Ludwig (1852): Avium systema naturale, plate XXX.

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@@ Line 24: / Line 24: @@
 '''''Emeus crassus''''' is an [[Extinction|extinct]] species of [[ratite]] bird belonging to the [[moa]] family. It is nowadays recognized as the only species of the [[genus]] ''Emeus''.
-''Emeus'' was of average size, standing 1,50 m (5 ft) tall. Like other moa, it had [[vestigal organ|vestigal]] [[wing]]s, [[hair]]-like [[feathers]] (beige in this case), a long neck and large, powerful legs. Its feet were exceptionally wide compared to other moas, making it a very slow creature. Because of this, [[human]] colonists hunted ''Emeus'' into extinction with relative ease. Like almost all moa, it was gone by the year [[1500]].
+''Emeus'' was of average size, standing 150 cm (5 ft) tall. Like other moa, it had [[vestigal organ|vestigal]] [[wing]]s, [[hair]]-like [[feathers]] (beige in this case), a long neck and large, powerful legs. Its feet were exceptionally wide compared to other moas, making it a very slow creature. Because of this, [[human]] colonists hunted ''Emeus'' into extinction with relative ease. Like almost all moa, it was gone by the year [[1500]].
 It has been long suspected that the "species" described as ''Emeus huttonii'' and ''E. crassus'' were males and females, respectively, of a single species. This has been confirmed by analysis for sex-specific genetic markers of DNA extracted from bone material; the females of ''E. crassus'' were 15-25% larger than males (Huynen ''et al''., 2003). This phenomenon — reverse size dimorphism — is not uncommon amongst ratites, being also very pronounced in [[kiwi]]s.