In a paper published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology , scientists make the typeface that an extinct giant predatory eagle might have been eating child . The eagle was not a magpie , as some believe , but a deadly hunter .
Of course , the paper ’s principal conclusion is n’t that the 40 - pound predator of the sky was rust tiddler . The real meaning of the paper is that the bird was n’t the pack rat that some paleontologists thought it was . It ’s evolutionary characteristics and brain size , as measured using CAT scan , show that it was more of a big - biz Orion .
The paper also offers another example of how apace evolution can happen in a closed ecosystem like an island . The bird of Jove ’s body grew much faster than its psyche , in this case . This growth was apparently due to the availability of much larger prey . This prey was most potential the moa bird , but the study also suggests that the bird of Jove might have victimized modest children .
In fact , if this boo really did harass the Maoris in New Zealand , it would excuse their legend of the pouakai or hokioi , a gargantuan boo that would swoop out of the mountains to attack people , sometimes even killing small children . This giantHaast ’s eaglemight be the mythic animate being from these storey . Hopefully this news does n’t mean that there actually is afrightening beastroaming the Americas sucking the blood of sinless laughingstock .
Extinct New Zealand eagle may have eaten humanity [ viaPhysOrg ]
( Image : the Haast ’s bird of Jove assail moa birds , fromPLoS )
AnimalsArchaeology
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