moa
1
9.9
- noun
- /moʊə/
- New Zealand
:
moa
- The giant moa was a flightless bird native to New Zealand that became extinct in the 15th century.
- moa is extinct
- moas in New Zealand
- moa skeletons
Examples
-
New Zealand's moas are no longer alive, but they molded the anatomy and behavior of New Zealand's surviving species.
Academic text (1990) -
The New Zealand eagle would have been the sole predator capable of attacking adult moas.
Academic text (1990) -
Yet the results of the collision between Maoris and moas have to be seen in context.
Academic text (1990) -
Having seen it happen to tree kangaroos, I now have no difficulty understanding how it happened to moas.
Academic text (1990) -
While the moas are New Zealand's most famous extinct birds, many others have been described from fossil bones.
Academic text (1990) -
Like the naive animals of the Galapagos Islands today, moas were probably tame enough that a hunter could walk up to one and club it.
Academic text (1990) -
All known species of moas were still present in abundance when the Maoris stepped ashore and became extinct a few centuries later.
Academic text (1990) -
The number of individual moas whose butchered, roasted skeletons have been retrieved from Maori ovens is estimated to exceed 100,000.
Academic text (1990) -
One piece of the answer to these puzzles has been known for a long time: the big, flightless, ostrichlike birds called moas, whose skeletons, some of them evidently recent and complete with skin and feathers, were recognized almost 150 years ago.
Academic text (1990) -
Still, radiocarbon dating of sites containing bones of the moa (an extinct, flightless bird) to the eleventh and twelfth centuries seemed to support the accepted chronology.
Academic text (2003)
Synonyms
A very large bird from New Zealand that could not fly and is now extinct
A group of very large extinct flightless birds from New Zealand called moas
Large flightless birds like moas from New Zealand that are now extinct
Compounds
Surface Forms
Etymology
Moa comes from the Māori word moa, which the native people of New Zealand used for the island's very large, flightless birds. A helpful image is an ostrich or emu that cannot fly, which reminds you that a moa was a big extinct bird.