Euryapteryx
a.k.a. Coastal Moa, Broad Billed moa, Stout Legged Moa.
Name:
Euryapteryx
(Broad wing).
Phonetic: Yu-rip-teh-riks.
Named By: Richard Owen - 1846.
Synonyms: Cela curtus, Celeus curtus,
Dinornis curtus, Dinornis gravis, Euryapteryx exilis, Emeus
gravipes, Euryapteryx gravis, Zelornis exilis.
Classification: Chordata, Aves, Paleognathae,
Dinornithiformes, Emeidae.
Species: E. curtus (type).
Diet: Herbivore.
Size: Up to one meter.
Known locations: New Zealand, including North
Island, South Island and Stewart Island.
Time period: Pleistocene to Holocene, probably
extinct by about 1400-1500AD.
Fossil representation: Several individuals,
including mummified remains.
The
Euryapteryx genus of moa
can be a bit confusing
since it is actually
known by three more common names, all of which reveal a little about
this genus. The first name is the Coastal Moa, so named because of
the abundant remains of this genus in coastal locations, though this
is not to say that Euryapteryx never ventured
further inland as some
other moa genera are known from both inland and coastal locations.
Euryapteryx is also known as the Broad Billed Moa
because of the width
of the bill. This may have been a response to feeding upon certain
plants where a broad bill was better for cropping, and may indicate
that in life Euryapteryx were not particularly
selective browsers.
Finally, the name Stout Legged (sometimes spelled as just one
word) Moa is a reference to the robust build of the legs.
Like
with other moa, female Euryapteryx were much
larger than males, as
much as twice as large. This is called reverse dimorphism since males
are usually larger than females, though animal species where females
are larger than males are not unknown, particularly within the ratite
birds which the moa belong to. The southern populations of
Euryapteryx also seem to have grown slightly larger
than those in the
north, perhaps as a response to differing environmental conditions.
At
the time of writing there is only one species of Euryapteryx
recognised
as valid. This is because of a 2012 DNA study which discovered
that the species E. gravis was actually
synonymous with the type
species E. curtus.
Care should be taken not to confuse the moa genus Euryapteryx with Eurypterus, a genus of sea scorpion from the Silurian period.
Further reading
- The evolutionary history of the extinct ratite moa and New Zealand
Neogene paleogeography - Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences 106 (49): 20646 - M. Bunce, T. H. Worthy,
M. J. Phillips, R. N. Holdaway, E. Willerslev, J.
Haile, B. Shapiro, R. P. Scofield, A. Drummond, P.
J. J. Kamp & A. Cooper - 2009.
- Twenty-first century advances in knowledge of the biology of moa
(Aves: Dinornithiformes): A new morphological analysis and moa
diagnoses revised - New Zealand Journal of Zoology 39 (2):
87 - T. H. Worthy & R. P. Scofield - 2012.
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