![]() If the Haast’s eagle ate like a condor, its head and neck might also have been featherless like that of the condor and most other vultures. Its similarities to the Haast’s eagle suggest the latter probably also feasted on the guts and other internal organs of its prey. The condor is a gulper, a bird that feeds on the soft internal organs of a carcass. However, the shape of its neurocranium - the section of skull that encloses the brain, and a key indicator of feeding behavior in birds - was most like that of the Andean condor ( Vultur gryphus). They found that the beak and talons of the Haast’s eagle were eagle-like. Scofield and colleagues compared the skull, beak and talons of the Haast’s eagle with those of five living scavenging and predatory birds. Once the moa was down, the eagle would go straight for the back of the skull and for the guts and other soft organs.” “As a result of this research, when we picture a Haast’s eagle feeding we can imagine them swooping down on a moa, grabbing on with those huge talons and using its powerful beak to deliver the killing blow. “Condors also often eat animals that are much larger than them, so it makes sense that they’d have similar feeding habits.” Paul Scofield, senior curator of natural history at Canterbury Museum. “Most eagles hunt prey that is smaller than them, but the Haast’s eagle was going after moa that could weigh up to 200 kg - more than 13 times their own body weight,” said Dr. The species was more than an order of magnitude heavier than the little eagle and represents an extraordinary example of rapid evolution within less than two million years. The closest living relative of the Haast’s eagle is one of the world’s smallest eagles - the little eagle ( Hieraaetus morphnoides). The Haast’s eagle is a species of eagle that lived on the South Island of New Zealand until it went extinct until 600 years ago.įirst described by Julius von Haast in 1871, the bird weighed up to 15 kg, approximately 30-40% heavier than the largest living eagle - the harpy eagle ( Harpia harpyja). An artist’s impression of the Haast’s eagle ( Hieraaetus moorei).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |