Ancient DNA Helps Solve the Legend of Giant Eagles

nomrniceguy writes "Gigantic eagles swooping from the skies to rescue Frodo and Sam in the Lord of the Rings may not be just the stuff of legends and fairytales, according to research published in the journal PloS Biology. McMaster University anthropologist Michael Bunce has shed new light on the evolution of the extinct Haast's eagle, the giant bird that once ruled the skies over New Zealand. Weighing between 20 and 30 pounds, the enormous Haast's Eagle dominated its environment. It was 30 to 40 per cent heavier than the largest living bird of prey around today, the Harpy Eagle of Central and South America."

Comments

What the heck is with New Zealand/Indonesia

[Marxist Hacker 42]

And a sudden explosion of Lord Of The Rings related discoveries? I know the movie was filemed there, but first hobbits and now giant eagles? What's next, we're going to find walking trees?

Re:What the heck is with New Zealand/Indonesia

[greylion3]

Well, these critters do exist, and there might have been a bigger sub-species of them in NZ some time ago.. =)

Re:What the heck is with New Zealand/Indonesia

[xott]

Ah, US geography. Every country in the world that isn't America is in a small contiguous region somewhere over 'there'. Indonesia is over 7000 km away from NZ, and the discovery of the 'little humans' has nothing to do with NZ at all. The New Zealand Eagle is nowhere near the size of Gwaihir and his cohorts. This isn't even a discovery, just a little bit of DNA analysis. Haast's eagle, better known here as the New Zealand eagle, and its existence has been known for a very long time. The most common idea forwarded for its extinction is the fact that the original settlers of New Zealand set fire to the entire South Island of New Zealand, killing off its food sources. as for the walking trees; you need to eat the blue mushrooms to see them.

Damned interesting science

[TFGeditor]

Say what you will, but an entire ecosystem with an avian apex predator is damned interesting stuff. Inspiration for a good ScFi novel, to be sure.

Neither Haast's nor Harpy the largest

[barakn]

A google search for "world's largest bird of prey" reveals that there's no concensus on which bird is the largest bird of prey. My money is on the Andean Condor, which, according to The Peregrine Fund, "has a body length of 43 - 51 inches and an 11-foot wingspan. The smaller female weighs 17 1/2 - 24 pounds while the larger male weighs 24 - 33 pounds." According to the same source, "The Harpy Eagle has a body length of 35 - 41 inches, a 6 1/2 -foot wingspan, and weighs 10 - 20 pounds. The female can be as much as twice as heavy as her mate." The argument that the Andean Condor, being a type of vulture, isn't a bird of prey is moot: "Andean Condors may kill some living prey."

Re:Neither Haast's nor Harpy the largest

[Almost-Retired]

All of which reminds me of a day out driving around in the Meade County South Dakota rolling plains. On a graveled road, running about 40 mph in an studebaker lark of 1961 vintage (good year btw), but then this was in the later 60's, so it was just another chair car then.

Anyway, I could see something sitting on a fencepost half a mile away, and as I drew nearer, I could see it was a good sized specimen of the American Golden Eagle that might have weighed 8 to 10 lbs.

As I drew near the post, the eagle spread its considerable wings (4.5 to 5 feet of them, very impressive to me) and literally fell off the post forward, catching itself with a couple of strokes of its wings. Rising up to the level of the open window on the passenger side, it flew alongside me for about half a mile, with its head turned to look me over most of the time, and looking as if it was considering me for lunch.

Eventually, I think it came to the conclusion that I was either too big to tackle, or in too small a space for it to fly into, and the wings, which had been beating about once every 1.5 seconds making the flight look very easy, missed a beat, then flaired out, along with the tail flicking this way and that as it steered into a stall about 2 inches above the next post top, and it settled in to watch the now new piece of real-estate in its view for anything that moved.

This birds flight noises were totally covered by the ambient sounds of doing 40 mph on a gravel road with the windows open, the well muffled motor itself not making a noticable contribution to the background noise. I could easily see this bird coming in from behind a prarie dog and picking him off his hole and the dog never knowing the bird was there till it was way too late if there was any sort of wind blowing to generate some masking sounds. And in that country, thats usually the case.

One of those memories from almost 40 years back up the log that one never forgets, to look an wild eagle in the eye from about 7 feet for a good piece of a minute.

--
Cheers, Gene

Haast's Eagle has been known for some time

[jd]

What wasn't known, until very recently, that it was NOT related to other giant eagles, but to one of the smallest eagles in Australia.

Haast's Eagle (Harpagornis moorei) has been known since 1872, to be precise, although the first fossils were apparently found in 1871. According to Christchurch Library in New Zealand, the most complete skeleton was found in 1990.

It is not altogether clear when it became exinct - or even if it did. The last report of a massive bird in New Zealand was in the 19th century, and persistant claims of a giant eagle of comparable size have been made in Canada. It is not impossible that the bird somehow escaped New Zealand and reached the Americas. In which case, Canada would be a logical place for it to go, being relatively uninhabited and much closer in climate to the South Island than, say, South America is.

Merely for trivia value, the Haast Eagle is believed to have preyed (at least in part) on the Moa (pronounced Moor - there are no extinct mowers in New Zealand that anyone is aware of), was the tallest bird that ever lived, at 13 feet. (The Elephant Bird, in comparison, was about 10-12 feet.)

The Moa's eggs, however, were about the same size as those of the Kiwi - which is only about a couple of feet in height. (The Kiwi lays one egg at a time, mostly because the egg is comparable in size to the bird itself!)

However, nature didn't stop there. Not too long ago, a giant octopus, 40' across, washed ashore there. Also, the only known grounds for baby giant squid (yes, the 40' variety) are also in their waters.

There are also several species of dolphin and whale that are unique to the area.

Not to be outdone, the Kea is the only known flightless parot. It is also the highest altitude parrot, living as it does at the snow line along the Southern Alps.

However, New Zealand didn't just produce some of the most magnificent creatures, it also produced some of the sickest, being home to the so-called "Killer Earthworm", a cannibalistic earthworm that devours just about anything in its path.

It also gets featured in Douglas Adams' "Last Chance To See", in consequence of having one of the rarest - and dumbest - birds in the world, which is apparently incapable of telling the difference between an egg and a potato.