Bunce, Michael, Szulkin, Marta, Lerner, Heather R L, Barnes, Ian, Shapiro, Beth, Cooper, Alan and Holdaway, Richard N (2005) Ancient DNA provides new insights into the evolutionary history of New Zealand's extinct giant eagle. PLoS Biology, 3 (1).
Full text access: Open
Prior to human settlement 700 years ago New Zealand had no terrestrial mammals--apart from three species of bats--instead, approximately 250 avian species dominated the ecosystem. At the top of the food chain was the extinct Haast's eagle, Harpagornis moorei. H. moorei (10-15 kg; 2-3 m wingspan) was 30%-40% heavier than the largest extant eagle (the harpy eagle, Harpia harpyja), and hunted moa up to 15 times its weight. In a dramatic example of morphological plasticity and rapid size increase, we show that the H. moorei was very closely related to one of the world's smallest extant eagles, which is one-tenth its mass. This spectacular evolutionary change illustrates the potential speed of size alteration within lineages of vertebrates, especially in island ecosystems.
This is a Submitted version This version's date is: 2005 This item is not peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/29b448bc-77af-fac7-872c-7442f9977a2b/1/
Deposited by Research Information System (atira) on 13-Jun-2012 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 13-Jun-2012