WEBVTT - From the Vault: Rise of the Moa 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.960 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:11.160 is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. 0:00:11.240 --> 0:00:13.280 Time to go into the vault for a classic episode 0:00:13.280 --> 0:00:16.079 of the show. This one is about the moa of 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:19.240 New Zealand. Uh, one of your one of your great 0:00:19.280 --> 0:00:22.000 loves of the past year. Yeah, this one was really 0:00:22.280 --> 0:00:24.360 this is a really fun topic to get into. This 0:00:24.440 --> 0:00:27.720 is gonna be a two parter um. I I will 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:29.520 point out that we didn't one thing. We didn't really 0:00:29.520 --> 0:00:31.840 get into the and these episodes where changes in our 0:00:31.920 --> 0:00:34.600 understanding of the sort of the stature of the moa, 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:38.279 exactly how it stood and how tall it would actually be. Uh. 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:40.240 We ended up addressing that, I think in a subsequent 0:00:40.400 --> 0:00:44.280 listener mail episode. But uh, but but I think everything 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:47.760 still holds up. I don't think any any MOA experts 0:00:47.800 --> 0:00:51.680 or MOA's uh had any any other corrections rather than 0:00:51.720 --> 0:00:53.760 to to point out that we didn't really touch on 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:57.440 that particular issue and these initial two episodes. Wait, So 0:00:57.560 --> 0:00:59.720 basically the deal is that maybe maybe the moa was 0:00:59.760 --> 0:01:03.080 more often bent over forwards rather than rather than standing 0:01:03.160 --> 0:01:06.959 up straight. Yeah, yeah, I guess. Yeah, it's one of those, um, 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:09.360 those situations that come up from time to time in 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.280 our understanding of fossils, you know, like it's one thing 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:16.520 to put the bones together, but another to actually uh 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:19.399 display them or position them, uh in a way that 0:01:19.440 --> 0:01:22.320 would be in keeping with the actual stature of the animal. 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:25.600 For instance, we see this in our changing understanding of 0:01:25.680 --> 0:01:27.600 t rex is over time. You know, you look back 0:01:27.600 --> 0:01:29.880 at the old illustrations of t rexes, and there were 0:01:29.920 --> 0:01:32.600 a lot more vertical, a lot more erect. But if 0:01:32.600 --> 0:01:34.680 you look at more recent depictions of how a t 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.959 rex would stand, you know, it's more horizontal. It's more 0:01:37.959 --> 0:01:40.960 in keeping with the way a chicken carries itself. Okay, 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.119 we'll keep that in mind. But otherwise, uh, let's let's 0:01:44.120 --> 0:01:50.280 head in Welcome Too to Blow Your Mind production of 0:01:50.320 --> 0:01:59.120 My Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:01:59.160 --> 0:02:02.280 your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.360 And to uh introduce today's episode, I thought maybe we 0:02:05.360 --> 0:02:08.160 should begin by reading a poem. Robert or you game, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:11.040 I'm game for a little little poetry. In fact, it's 0:02:11.080 --> 0:02:15.640 not just poetry, it's moetry. I did not make that 0:02:15.720 --> 0:02:17.880 joke in my head yet, but maybe because I'm not 0:02:17.919 --> 0:02:20.600 as perverse as you. This is by the New Zealand 0:02:20.639 --> 0:02:25.160 poet Alan kerr Now's was originally published in nineteen and 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:29.440 it's called The Skeleton of the Great Moa in Canterbury Museum, 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.800 christ Church. The Skeleton of the Moa, on iron crutches, 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:38.440 broods over no great waste, deprivate swamp was where this 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.400 tree grew feathers once that hatches its dusty clutch and 0:02:42.480 --> 0:02:46.360 guards them from the damp. Interesting failure to adapt on 0:02:46.440 --> 0:02:50.120 islands taller but not more fallen than I, who come 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:54.440 bone to his bone. Peculiarly New Zealand's The eyes of 0:02:54.520 --> 0:02:58.960 children flicker around this tomb under the skylights, wonder at 0:02:59.000 --> 0:03:02.760 the huge egg found in a thousand pieces, piece together, 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.680 but with less patients than the bones that dug in 0:03:06.840 --> 0:03:10.760 time deep shelter against the ocean weather. Not I, some 0:03:10.960 --> 0:03:14.160 child born in a marvelous year will learn the trick 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:17.720 of standing upright here. You can find that poem, by 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.079 the way, in the nineteen seventy nine Anthology and Anthology 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.360 of twentieth century New Zealand Poetry. And yeah, I really 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.600 love the cadence of that poem. And also I feel 0:03:27.600 --> 0:03:32.120 like it effectively captures the weird beauty of these reassembled 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:35.320 skeleton remains one sees of the mighty moa. You know, 0:03:35.360 --> 0:03:38.080 we just did Marianne Moore in the paper Nautilus. This 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:40.160 is another poem like that. I love a good poem 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:44.880 that genuinely ponders biology like this deals with the evolutionary 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:48.160 adaptation of the moa, the flightless birds of New Zealand, 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:51.040 uh and and the idea of learning the trick of 0:03:51.080 --> 0:03:54.800 standing upright. Yeah, now, this is gonna be a fun 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.960 couple of episodes. I'm really excited about these episodes. So 0:03:58.080 --> 0:04:00.520 I think that the moa is one of the things 0:04:00.520 --> 0:04:03.440 that's really keeping me going right now, getting to research, 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:07.200 read about the moa, and envision the moa. Uh No, 0:04:07.200 --> 0:04:09.120 no matter what where I don't know where you are 0:04:09.240 --> 0:04:10.800 out there, if you're listening to this, where you are 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:13.920 in your previous understanding of of the moa and other 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.240 flightless birds. But this is a This is a wonderful 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:20.760 and weird story that has as a number of number 0:04:20.800 --> 0:04:22.719 of connections to things we've talked about in the past, 0:04:23.800 --> 0:04:25.960 but but also some some new angles. We're gonna be 0:04:25.960 --> 0:04:29.440 talking about evolution. We're gonna be talking about first contact 0:04:29.560 --> 0:04:33.000 between man and beast. It's a it's gonna be a 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.320 fun ride. And there's no better place to start a 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:38.200 fun ride than in New Zealand, the land of avian decadence, 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:42.480 that's right, and the place where the mammal is truly debase. 0:04:43.000 --> 0:04:46.000 That's right because you, I know, obviously the rise of 0:04:46.080 --> 0:04:49.600 mammals is one of evolutions most celebrated victory stories, right 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.240 because in part because we are, of course mammals ourselves, 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:55.960 and there's perhaps a sense of of the gods and 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:58.480 the primordial titans when we consider the age of the 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:01.920 dinosaurs that came before us in our own mammalian age 0:05:02.279 --> 0:05:05.480 that we have, you know, ascended in now. Well, yeah, 0:05:05.520 --> 0:05:07.880 I mean there's very much a case of when you 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.680 look at the Cretaceous paleogy and extinction event that caused 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.760 the demise of the non avian dinosaurs, Uh, it's quite 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.840 clear that their loss was our gain, yes, but it 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:19.120 was wasn't only our gain. It was also the gain 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.480 of of birds, and we often neglect the just the 0:05:22.560 --> 0:05:26.640 exceptional dominance of birds for theirs is the the legacy 0:05:26.720 --> 0:05:29.279 of the of the dinosaur. And then they remain highly 0:05:29.360 --> 0:05:32.159 successful and widespread to this day. They remain masters of 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:35.880 the air, frequent masters of the water, and sometimes masters 0:05:35.880 --> 0:05:38.520 of the land as well. Now, why would birds be 0:05:38.600 --> 0:05:41.200 the masters of the land, Like they've got the air 0:05:41.279 --> 0:05:43.760 that seems so much better than the land, why even 0:05:43.800 --> 0:05:46.880 bother with the land? Well, of course, the obvious answer 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:49.400 there is that is that to be a master of 0:05:49.440 --> 0:05:52.080 the of the air requires a great deal of energy, 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.320 and if you don't have to fly around, you quickly 0:05:55.400 --> 0:06:00.320 find reasons not to Evolutionarily speaking, of course, also if 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.560 we're talking about mammals and avian dinosaurs or birds, why 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:07.400 exactly was it that the loss of the dinosaurs was 0:06:07.480 --> 0:06:10.279 the gain of these other clades. Well, because suddenly you 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.640 have all of these uh, these niches in the in 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:16.960 the in in in the in the environment that open up. Uh. 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.760 That's suddenly a bird can can occupy, or various creatures 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:23.919 have the ability to occupy mammals included. But this is 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:26.480 where we see the emergence of a number of these 0:06:26.520 --> 0:06:28.880 different flightless birds. This is where we see the emergence 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:32.360 of the terror birds and the demon ducks. Uh. And 0:06:32.600 --> 0:06:35.040 we'll get into some more examples of flightless birds as 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.200 we go. Uh, but yeah, to be sure, we still 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:41.359 have some amazing flightless land birds with us today, and 0:06:41.400 --> 0:06:44.719 some of them are are quite enormous. The largest, of course, 0:06:44.839 --> 0:06:48.680 is the ostrich. There are two species remaining. There was 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:51.520 a third, the Asian ostrich, that went extinct roughly six 0:06:51.560 --> 0:06:54.240 thousand years ago. Yeah. The two extant species are the 0:06:54.279 --> 0:06:56.919 common ostrich and the Somali ostrich, and they're both native 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.200 to Africa. Yeah, and I sometimes I feel like we 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:03.640 sometimes over look how cool ostriches are. I find that 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.280 it's zoos they you know, for one thing, it's a 0:07:06.360 --> 0:07:09.160 zoo habitat, and and you know it's it's so you're 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:11.600 seeing an ostrich in a fenced in area. But then 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:14.280 sometimes the ostrich is in there with a giraffe, which 0:07:14.280 --> 0:07:17.720 seems particularly unfair because the giraffe, of course, is the 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:22.960 is the tallestum extant mammal that we have, And it 0:07:22.960 --> 0:07:24.880 feels kind of like a dirty trick to showcase the 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:28.480 world's the world's tallest extant bird with the tallest mammal 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:30.640 which towers over it. Right, It's like I'm trying to 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:32.800 show off my muscles, but then you put me next 0:07:32.840 --> 0:07:35.400 to a gorilla. Yeah. But but we have some other 0:07:35.440 --> 0:07:39.680 wonderful examples of flightless birds uh elsewhere. For instance, we 0:07:39.760 --> 0:07:43.440 have EMUs, which are very fascinating. You get a chance 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:45.960 to just look at an emu, just watch an emu 0:07:46.040 --> 0:07:50.400 as it goes about its business. It's it's remarkable. The 0:07:50.440 --> 0:07:53.120 castlewary is one of my favorites mine too. There's a 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.360 castle wary here at the Atlanta Zoo. Yes, Cecil, Cecil 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:58.840 the cast Wary, who we we've talked on the show 0:07:58.880 --> 0:08:02.720 before with friend Jason Ward here in town about Cecil 0:08:02.800 --> 0:08:06.680 the Cassowary. Who remember Jason telling us that it's dung 0:08:06.960 --> 0:08:09.360 is very like fragrant and kind of smells of fruit. 0:08:09.440 --> 0:08:12.320 Even though it is the I mean not to demonize animals, 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:13.800 but when you get up close to it, it is 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.120 a horrifying beast. Like it's beautiful. Its colors are beautiful. 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:21.000 It has the blue and the red and the black feathers. 0:08:21.040 --> 0:08:23.400 It's a gorgeous animal. But also if you look at 0:08:23.440 --> 0:08:28.480 its foot, it's foot looks like a puppet from a 0:08:28.480 --> 0:08:31.400 monster movie. You know it is. It is just a 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:37.160 killing thing. It's got these claws and this scaly, scabby skin. Uh, 0:08:37.200 --> 0:08:40.080 that's a tongue twister. But yeah, look at a cassowary 0:08:40.200 --> 0:08:43.040 up close sometime if you just want to be terrified 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:47.000 and audit nature. Indeed, yeah, they they can. They can't 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.160 prove quite deadly if you know, the human comes into 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.280 close contact with them and there they begin engaging in 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:57.520 a defensive behavior. Oh yeah, don't try to look at 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.679 their feet up close if there is not a like 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.720 area between you. Yeah. Of course we have other flightless 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:04.800 birds who consider one of the more amazing ones. Of course, 0:09:04.800 --> 0:09:08.720 it's the key we of New Zealand um, the nocturnal 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:13.040 ground bird. All of these birds are what we call rattites, 0:09:13.240 --> 0:09:17.360 a diverse group of flightless birds that were widespread across 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:21.480 the scattered fragments of the supercontinent Gondwana uh and the 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:26.079 and their dominance is waned over time, certainly with the 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:28.840 rise of Homo sapiens. We still have all these various 0:09:28.840 --> 0:09:32.120 examples that still remain today. Yeah, and you find you 0:09:32.160 --> 0:09:34.960 find large flightless birds, well actually large and small flightless 0:09:34.960 --> 0:09:39.000 birds everywhere from New Zealand to South America. You know. 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:42.120 Then that's without even getting into the the obvious example 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:44.960 of just other flightless birds. There's also the penguin of course, 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:49.200 but well, this raises the question why do we have 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.280 flightless birds all over the place like this? Well, Uh, 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.560 In the nineteen nineties there was a wonderfully titled theory 0:09:56.120 --> 0:09:59.880 MOA's arc, which would assume that all of these ra 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:03.120 tides descended from a common ancestor. So, in other words, 0:10:03.280 --> 0:10:07.559 the idea here is that a flighted ancestor became flightless 0:10:07.600 --> 0:10:10.800 on god Dwana, and then as the supercontinent split, this 0:10:11.000 --> 0:10:16.679 one flightless ancestor UH diverged into all these different flightless species. Okay, 0:10:16.679 --> 0:10:20.560 so you get one instance of these birds descending from 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:23.199 an ancestor and becoming flightless, and then the flightless one 0:10:23.280 --> 0:10:26.120 goes all over the place, and then there's continental drift 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.800 to supercontinent splits up, and the flightless descendants of that 0:10:30.840 --> 0:10:33.839 one ancestor all go off into different places and evolve 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:37.160 in different directions, and they become everything from the ostrich 0:10:37.320 --> 0:10:41.480 to the key we to the moa. Right. But one 0:10:41.480 --> 0:10:45.319 of the issues with this, UH, this idea is that 0:10:45.600 --> 0:10:48.319 this would mean we'd expect something we'd expect, say in 0:10:48.320 --> 0:10:50.800 New Zealand, we'd expect the moa and the Kiwi to 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:54.720 be closely related to each other. We'd expect that any 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:58.199 any of these ratites that live close together would also 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.839 be closely related, but subsquent DNA studies have revealed that 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:04.760 this was not the case. Instead of MOA's ark, the 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.760 model seems to be one of numerous cases of flighted 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:12.520 to flightless evolution around the world. So again, convergent evolution. Uh. 0:11:12.800 --> 0:11:17.600 This repeated instance of a flighted bird evolving into a 0:11:17.600 --> 0:11:20.920 bird that doesn't fly, which seems so strange of a 0:11:21.080 --> 0:11:23.160 of a choice for evolution to make. I mean not 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:25.760 to personify it too much, but but what is the 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.160 advantage there? I think we alluded to this earlier. One 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:31.800 of the main theories about this is that it's an 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:36.040 energy advantage. If a bird doesn't need to fly, then 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:40.560 it doesn't need to make huge pectoral muscles capable flapping 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:42.880 wings that can get it into the air. And if 0:11:42.920 --> 0:11:45.079 it doesn't need to make those big muscles, it can 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.640 spend that energy on something else, or it can just 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.440 survive on less food. Yeah. Uh, And it can have 0:11:51.480 --> 0:11:53.280 just like a smaller it can have less of a 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:55.560 basal metabolic rate. And we've we've talked on the show 0:11:55.559 --> 0:12:00.520 pretty recently about birds having a pretty high BMR. So, so, yeah, 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.000 this is basically the reason why we see the rise 0:12:03.040 --> 0:12:06.360 of these various flightless birds in you know, all corners 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.960 of the world really. But then of course a number 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:11.959 of them end up falling away, and of course we'll 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.120 get into the details of of of the fall of 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:18.480 the moa in these episodes. Uh, in the case of 0:12:18.480 --> 0:12:20.480 the moa and in the case of the elephant bird, 0:12:20.960 --> 0:12:25.040 it's it's the encountering human beings that did the trick. Yes, 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:27.760 once again, human beings seem to be a sort of 0:12:28.120 --> 0:12:31.720 anomaly in the fossil record in the evolutionary story. Once 0:12:31.760 --> 0:12:35.400 we enter the picture, things tend to go haywire. But 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:37.600 another question is coming back to what we were just 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.400 talking about, like the energy considerations in losing flight. So 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:43.960 it is clear that you can save a lot of 0:12:44.080 --> 0:12:46.959 energy by not being a flying bird if you don't 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:49.640 need to fly, But in what case what a bird 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:53.040 not need to fly? Shouldn't flying always help a bird 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:56.360 to survive? Well, basically it comes down to, like like 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.880 we said earlier, the death of the dinosaurs creating these 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:02.439 these holes for these niches for it in the environment. 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:05.320 You need a place where I mean to to use 0:13:05.320 --> 0:13:08.520 a very simple, even tacki metaphor here. For birds, they 0:13:08.559 --> 0:13:11.240 need a place to land, uh, in a place it's 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.560 not already occupied by say a highly successful dinosaur or 0:13:14.679 --> 0:13:18.960 highly highly successful mammal. And so there there are corners 0:13:19.040 --> 0:13:22.480 of the world uh you know, other shards of Gondwana 0:13:22.840 --> 0:13:25.240 where the the the idea of a kingdom of the 0:13:25.280 --> 0:13:30.560 birds remained at least partially unchallenged by mammalian usurpers. Like 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:32.920 nothing came nothing was already there to keep the bird 0:13:32.960 --> 0:13:37.400 from landing, and nothing came up to to erase it 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:41.199 from the ecosystem. Um. For instance, there's the island of Madagascar, 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.360 which enjoyed something like eighty eight million years of isolation, 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:48.760 during which it fostered various forms of lemur, as well 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:52.800 as the massive elephant bird uh, not only a rattite 0:13:52.880 --> 0:13:57.240 but often considered the largest known rattite to ever walk 0:13:57.320 --> 0:14:01.240 the earth. But then there's also far are flung New Zealand, 0:14:01.880 --> 0:14:04.640 which enjoyed an amazing degree of freedom as well from 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:10.160 the mammalian revolution, well until roughly um c e with 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:13.720 the arrival of human beings. Now that's not to say 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:17.320 they were completely free of mammals. That believe they're too extinct. 0:14:17.440 --> 0:14:22.600 Primitive mammals known only as the Saint Bathans mammal that 0:14:22.640 --> 0:14:27.360 are present in the in the fossil record from the Miocene. Otherwise, 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:29.720 the only way for a mammal to get to New 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.080 Zealand was to fly there or to swim there. So 0:14:34.280 --> 0:14:37.960 you'd have this huge island that's got birds on it, 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.600 but does not have any large mammalian predators. It doesn't 0:14:41.640 --> 0:14:44.640 have any lions, it doesn't have any wolves, it doesn't 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.640 have any foxes anything for a bird to need to 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.880 fly and escape from. Yeah, so if you don't have 0:14:51.920 --> 0:14:54.720 a predator you have to fly and escape from, why 0:14:54.800 --> 0:14:58.320 even keep making wings? Exactly? You just you land and 0:14:58.320 --> 0:15:00.640 you start filling those niches. There's no buffalo there, no 0:15:00.760 --> 0:15:03.840 horses again, no wolves. And then the as far as 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:06.320 the other mammals, the ones that have swam there. I mean, 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.600 we're talking about seals, sea lions, whales out in the 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:13.000 waters around New Zealand. And they they're they're they're not 0:15:13.080 --> 0:15:17.560 gonna invade the forest anytime soon. Uh, they're doing just fine. 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.480 And then other than that, we have bats. Bats flew 0:15:21.600 --> 0:15:25.520 to New Zealand where we do see you do see 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.840 an interest in case where where the bats that come 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.080 to New Zealand end up spending more time on the 0:15:31.520 --> 0:15:34.800 ground than you see elsewhere in the world, particular the 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:38.000 New Zealand lesser short tailed bat, which spends a lot 0:15:38.040 --> 0:15:42.680 of its time foraging on the forest floor crawling around, um, 0:15:42.720 --> 0:15:45.800 basically taking on a far more terrestrial role than bats 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:49.040 employee elsewhere. Again, this would make sense as an evolutionary 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:51.200 adaptation if there's just not a lot of stuff to 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.360 worry about on the ground like there is everywhere else. Yeah, 0:15:55.400 --> 0:15:58.000 Like we mentioned the kiwi earlier, Like the kiwi is 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.600 an example of a ground dwelling bird. Uh, you know, 0:16:02.000 --> 0:16:05.040 it goes around at night, it eats things like worms, 0:16:05.360 --> 0:16:07.840 but there's nothing there's nothing like a mole there. There 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.040 are no moles to fill that niche in the environment. Uh. 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:15.120 Therefore the kiwi is is taking that role on even 0:16:15.120 --> 0:16:17.200 though it is a bird. Now you do see some 0:16:17.240 --> 0:16:21.120 cases where reptiles or gastropods are also you know, filling 0:16:21.160 --> 0:16:23.760 in these these niches in the environment in New Zealand, 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.080 But for the most part, the birds are the real 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:29.720 stars here. Um. We mentioned the kiwi and there are 0:16:29.840 --> 0:16:32.600 there are numerous other examples of flightless birds in New Zealand. 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:36.120 There's a There are various extant species that we still find, 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:38.520 such as the South Island tacky heat and then there's 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.840 also a flightless bird known as the Weka. But the 0:16:41.840 --> 0:16:46.720 most amazing examples are the nine now extinct species of moa, 0:16:47.440 --> 0:16:51.880 including the giant moa that used to uh To to 0:16:51.920 --> 0:16:55.320 exert their dominance over New Zealand. Well, maybe we should 0:16:55.320 --> 0:16:56.640 take a break and then when we come back we 0:16:56.680 --> 0:17:03.400 can talk about this giant bird. Alright, we're back, So 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:06.520 we just introduced the character of the moa. This I 0:17:06.560 --> 0:17:08.920 guess we alluded to a little bit earlier. But this 0:17:09.080 --> 0:17:14.120 giant flightless bird that used to inhabit New Zealand, that's right. Yeah, 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:16.639 there were nine different nine different species are known to exist. 0:17:16.640 --> 0:17:19.879 There's the upland moa, the little bush moa, and I 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:22.960 have to stress the little bush moa was still one 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:26.360 point three meters or four point three ft tall, so 0:17:26.400 --> 0:17:29.240 it's still the sizeable bird. Wait is it now? Is 0:17:29.240 --> 0:17:32.879 it the little bush moa or the little bush moa? Uh? 0:17:33.040 --> 0:17:35.439 The little bush moa sometimes just referred to as the 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.119 bush moa. I'm just trying to think. I mean, is 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:40.000 it like a bush moa that's little or is it 0:17:40.040 --> 0:17:42.480 being compared to a little bush or something? Oh, I 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.440 think it basically lived in the bush bush mooa would 0:17:45.440 --> 0:17:49.360 have would have lived more in the rainforest. So essentially 0:17:49.359 --> 0:17:51.280 the moa is so successful. You have all you have 0:17:51.359 --> 0:17:54.200 like nine different varieties and different parts of New Zealand, 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:59.000 different sizes. But the two largest word dinormous robustus which 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:04.399 means robust, strange bird and dinormous novels O Lindia. So 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.919 we're largely gonna be talking about those two because they 0:18:06.920 --> 0:18:10.600 were the biggest. We're talking about moa that reached the 0:18:10.640 --> 0:18:13.720 heights of three point six meters or twelve feet tall, 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:18.280 that's with the neck outstretched and there with with estimated 0:18:18.280 --> 0:18:23.640 weights of two or five and ten pounds. So these 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:28.080 were these were sizeable critters. They looked rather like an 0:18:28.200 --> 0:18:31.080 enormous emu. So if you've seen an emu in in person, 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:33.560 you have like a good starting point for imagining them. 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:39.040 Like a wide, kind of shaggy feathery body on long, 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:44.280 uh you know, lethal looking legs with these great claws 0:18:44.359 --> 0:18:47.080 at the end and a long snaking neck you know, 0:18:47.119 --> 0:18:49.760 almost like a like a like a like an elephant's 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.840 trunk that leads a two comparatively small head. Yes, and 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.800 the skeletons. It's almost like a comically small looking head 0:18:55.880 --> 0:19:00.879 compared to the giganticness of its body. But so another 0:19:01.040 --> 0:19:03.400 one thing I would wonder about, of course, is Okay, well, 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:05.359 we know it's probably flightless, but what does it do 0:19:05.480 --> 0:19:07.600 with its wings? Does have a little a little like 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.680 t rex arm talons up there, or what's happening with 0:19:10.720 --> 0:19:12.920 the wings? Well, that's that's typically what you expect, right. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:16.800 Flightless birds typically have at least vestigial wings, a little 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:22.000 shrunken remnants of their long neglected flying limbs. Uh. Sometimes, 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:23.960 as with an ostrich, there's still some sort of a 0:19:24.080 --> 0:19:26.919 use for these wings. The ostrich uses it's it's so 0:19:27.160 --> 0:19:29.920 it's little wings there to stabilize them when they run 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:33.280 and to aid in courtship displays, even though there you know, 0:19:33.320 --> 0:19:36.040 they do not produce flight at all. Right, Well, I 0:19:36.080 --> 0:19:38.520 mean you can see, uh, some birds that are thought 0:19:38.520 --> 0:19:42.040 to be flightless actually do kind of glide near to 0:19:42.080 --> 0:19:44.600 the ground. Some like chickens, can use their wings to 0:19:44.920 --> 0:19:46.920 you know, kind of glide around near the ground, right, 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.639 and be even failing that, like sometimes there's some purpose, 0:19:49.720 --> 0:19:52.560 even if it's a display, right, And even if there's 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:54.800 not a purpose, you might expect to find, as with 0:19:54.840 --> 0:19:59.879 other flightless birds, to find some vestigial remain of that limb, 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.160 you know, like little bones or something. But the moa 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.879 doesn't even have vestigial wings. There are no little not 0:20:07.040 --> 0:20:10.920 like even like shrunken bones that are left over. There 0:20:11.040 --> 0:20:13.560 is no trace of their wings at all. They have 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:18.160 simply been erased through their evolution. That's creepy, It's yeah, 0:20:18.200 --> 0:20:21.280 it's amazing, it's it's it's one of the very few 0:20:21.320 --> 0:20:25.520 known creatures to possess only two limbs. The only other 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:27.840 creatures that I could run across that were in a 0:20:27.880 --> 0:20:31.679 similar situation at all are the Mexican mole lizard and 0:20:31.800 --> 0:20:35.800 the Serenada salamanders. Both of these are cases where creature 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:40.120 has lost its hind legs and retains its its front limbs. 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:42.760 But you won't find any mammals that are like this. 0:20:43.160 --> 0:20:46.119 Even the hind legs of the great whales remain in 0:20:46.560 --> 0:20:50.160 this digital form um. No, you find no other birds, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:54.280 no dinosaurs, just these nine species of giant land birds, 0:20:54.359 --> 0:20:57.200 even the t rex. So it's you know, famously small 0:20:57.560 --> 0:21:00.520 um four limbs. So we've we've discussed the very theories 0:21:00.520 --> 0:21:03.000 for why they kept even those those tiny limbs on 0:21:03.000 --> 0:21:05.960 the show before. But even the t rex still has 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:10.760 little little arms. The moa has no arms, no, no 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.879 wings at all. It's just such a strange creature. The 0:21:13.920 --> 0:21:16.040 other day, I was imagining it as a kind of 0:21:16.720 --> 0:21:22.720 biological unic cycle. Yeah, it's it's so weird. It's it's 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:27.639 like some of the illustrations look oddly huggable, but it 0:21:27.640 --> 0:21:30.240 has no arms, it has no wings, like there's nothing. 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:33.159 I kept thinking, like, why does this? Why is this 0:21:33.800 --> 0:21:36.080 amaze me? So? And I think part of it is 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.640 that when we think about animals. So I've noticed when 0:21:38.800 --> 0:21:41.960 when children think about animals, they often embody the animal. 0:21:42.200 --> 0:21:45.000 You know, they have to act like the animal, and 0:21:45.240 --> 0:21:48.760 you know, pandomimement and so forth is a fascinating tendency. 0:21:48.800 --> 0:21:51.359 By the way, why do they naturally do that? But 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:53.800 I think even if we're not like actually moving our 0:21:53.840 --> 0:21:55.600 bodies around, when we look at animal, there's part of 0:21:55.680 --> 0:21:58.359 us that like puts ourselves in its body, and we 0:21:58.400 --> 0:22:03.120 imagine our limbs as its slims. And this creature has 0:22:03.320 --> 0:22:07.760 has no, uh, nothing like arms at all. So if 0:22:07.800 --> 0:22:09.399 you're you're trying to get this in your head, just 0:22:09.600 --> 0:22:11.520 you know, stop. If you have a chance, look up 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:14.480 some images of the moa, of its skeletal remains, and 0:22:14.520 --> 0:22:17.120 also reconstructions of what it would have looked like, and 0:22:17.200 --> 0:22:20.719