Those of us with a fascination for cryptozoology will be familiar with Americas ‘Thunderbird’ (giant man-eating) bird legend. Well, wouldn’t you know… I Came across an extremely interesting article in this week’s NZ Herald about New Zealand’s very own man-eating bird with a 3-meter wingspan and talons as big as tiger’s claws that terrorised the early Maori.
Now if that’s not worthy of a blog post, I don’t know what is.
The Maori Legend of the giant man-eating bird, Te Hokioi, is a legend no more. It is now believed by scientists to be the Haast’s Eagle that was discovered in swamp deposits by Sir Julius von Haast in the 1870s.
Haast’s eagle has until now, always been thought to be a scavenger because its bill was similar to a vulture’s, but a re-examination of skeletons using today’s technology shows it could easily deliver a killing blow as it dived at speeds of up to 80kph.
“They were certainly capable of swooping down and taking a child… and had the ability to not only strike with their talons but to close the talons and put them through quite solid objects such as a pelvis. It was designed as a killing machine.” says Paul Scofield, the curator of vertebrate zoology at the Canterbury Museum.
The eagle’s main prey would have been Moa, flightless birds which grew to as much as 250kg and 2.5 metres tall. Tragically, it is believed that once the Moa were exterminated by humans, the giant man-eater simply died out also.
Glad these aren't around anymore… unless it decided to grab the whippet that is. ;)
Posted by PaisleyJade | September 17, 2009, 9:29 amHeh heh. It would have to be pretty fast to catch a Whippet! Make good TV though with David Attinborough overdubbed voice. 'Now here we have the…'
Posted by lesmondj | September 17, 2009, 8:15 pmI am from Mizoram, the eastern part of India. In 1870s my great grandfather shot down a giant man-eating eagle which is called Mura in Mizo. From my grandfather’s written description of the body of this giant eagle, the skin between its lower jaws was used as a cap by his friend, its claws are as big as a bull’s horn. He said that he shot the smallest of three. And there are seven small caves, presumably made to be closed by stone, nearby my hometown Champhai called Mura Puk (‘Puk’ means ‘Cave’)which was said to be the hide-out of people from this dreadful eagle.
Posted by david thangluaia | April 6, 2011, 8:43 pmHi David. Thanks so much for commenting! The Mura story would make an awesome blogpost! Any other info. would be hugely appreciated ;-)
Posted by Symon | April 7, 2011, 12:05 amMost welcome Symon, your encouraging comment inspire me to post more about our topic! In the near future I’ll try to post more details. My grandfather has donated the talons to Government Gandhi Memorial High School, Champhai, Mizoram, to be displayed in their school museum before I was born. Unfortunately, it was lost now, therefore, my search for documentary prove need more time. Let’s see what comes up…
Posted by David Thangluaia | April 20, 2011, 5:16 am