MOA SKELETON

Gisborne Times, Volume LXV, Issue 10309, 19 January 1927, Page 5

MOA SKELETON

FOUND ON COROMANDEL PENINSULA IMPORTANT SCIENTIFIC POINTS ELUCIDATED. (Special to the Times.) AUCKLAND, Jan. 18. , Hie almost complete skeleton of a mou of the cela geranoides species, found by Mr, C. A. McCall at Matamata, Harekeke, on the east coast of the Coromandel Peninsula, near the Thames, has been forwarded to the Auckland Museum, and is under the care of the curator, Mr. Gilbert Archey. He regards it as an important acquisition to the collection in the moa section of the museum, and a discovery that has cleared up two or three points, mostly of a scientific nature, hitherto in doubt. He said the value of the. find was that the skeleton was almost complete, and not like many skeletons that were on exhibition, made up from bones qf various birds. • It was an addition t 6 the small number of almost complete skeletons that had been found, and was the third of these to reach the museum. The first was the dinornis torosus, found in a cave at Takaka, Nelson, and the second was of the type cela Oweni, found likewise in a cave at Whangarei. Each of these dissipates the popular idea that all mo.s were large. Mix’. McCall’s moa was only 4ft. in height, and its bones are comfortably packed away in a package the size of a soap box, hut it was not by any mentis the smallest moa. The sizes of the species varied tromj 14ft down to a very small height. The cela Oweni type was about the size of a tui-key and the dinornis toi-osus about 9ft. high. It has been estimated that there were 27 different species of the moa. Much remains to be learned about the moa, and how soon and adequately this knowledge is gained depends largely on the number of complete skeletons that are discovered. In this, way the discovery by Mr. McCall is one of the most valuable in recent rears.