Everyone keeps missing the obvious here. This eagle killed. Forty
pounds at forty miles per hour delivered through powerful claws is a
killing stroke. You do not have to lift the body at all. This means
that it could swoop in and kill, then glide around to make sure that
the coast remained clear before settling onto the body to feed. It
still fed like a vulture and was equipped accordingly.
This was one scary predator that we may be thankful is no longer out
hunting us. We would be terribly vulnerable because from a height we
appear much smaller and suitable as a meal.
At least the Thunderbird is not an eagle or we would be facing a
similar problem.
New Zealand’s
man-eating bird was real
Turns out the
man-eating bird was real.
Drew Adams Monday, June 03, 2013
In New Zealand, an old
Maori legend once spoke of a large, man-eating bird.
Christened Te Hokioi
after the sound of its bird-call, the creature was described to New
Zealand governor Sir George Gray as black and white with a red crest
and wingtips colored a yellow-green hue. Stories of the Te Hokioi
were passed among the Maori by word of mouth with various depictions
of the beast in rock drawings. It was not until a study was published
in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology in 2009 that the Te Hokioi
became more than a mythical being.
Researchers with the
Canterbury Museum in Christchurch and the University of New South
Wales in Australia re-examined the skeletal remains of Haast’s
eagle (also known as Harpagornis moorei) to determine that it was
likely one in the same with Te Hokioi.
Discovered in the
1870s by Sir Julius von Haast, the eagle was originally considered to
be a scavenger akin to the vulture. The assumption was based on a
similar bill structure to that of vultures, including the existence
of nostril hoods to keep flesh from blocking the bird’s ability to
breathe while digging into carcasses.
The researchers used
modern instruments such as CAT scans to conclude that Haast’s eagle
had a pelvis strong enough to deliver a killing blow while diving at
speeds close to 80 kilometers per hour. Not only that, but the female
eagle shared similar dimensions to that of the Te Hokioi of legend,
including a wingspan of up to three meters and a weight that could
reach 18 kilograms.
Although its talons
were equivalent to that of a tiger’s claw, the bird’s ability to
kill and eat a man was met with skepticism by some. Still, it was a
dangerous creature. “It was certainly capable of swooping down and
taking a child,” said Paul Scofield, curator of vertebrate zoology
with the Canterbury Museum.
Based on fossil
findings, it is believed that the eagle preyed mainly on moa, large
flightless birds whose bones were located in areas that also showed
signs of Haast eagle activity.
Since New Zealand was
isolated from other continents during the Cretaceous, it had no
native land mammals. Instead, birds filled the roles assigned to
mammals elsewhere—Scofield said that the eagle was the country’s
equivalent of a lion. Haast’s eagle is thought to have died out
after humans arrived to the island 1,000 years ago and began hunting
their food source, the moa.
Finding Haast eagle
bones remains difficult since there were never that many of the bird
to begin with. It lived exclusively in the country’s South Island.
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