[craftyguy]

Why do you think they flew? The top largest birds (by height and mass) alive today do not fly, and could never fly under their own power.

[lostlogin]

Moa were a massive bird in New Zealand, with some thought to be 4m tall - they didn’t fly. Whilst looking them up I stumbled on the Haast’s Eagle, which hunted Moa. It was huge relative to today’s eagles and hunted Moa. There are accounts from early settlers that may reflect encounters with them.

[craftyguy]

Thanks for sharing that, I've never heard of the Haast's Eagle.

The ~9ft wing span would be terrifying to see.

> Haast's eagles preyed on large, flightless bird species, including the moa, which was up to fifteen times the weight of the eagle.[9] It is estimated to have attacked at speeds up to 80 km/h (50 mph)

I wonder if these things attacked the early humans that inhabited New Zealand, before they went extinct.

[grzm]

> "The ~9ft wing span would be terrifying to see."

Wow! Looks like large bald eagles can have wing spans of 8ft, so you might get a chance to be nearly (89%?) as terrified :)

> " The largest eagles are from Alaska, where large females may weigh up to 7.5 kg (17 lb) and span 2.44 m (8.0 ft) across the wings."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bald_eagle#Description

[lostlogin]

The Haasts Eagle had a small wingspan relative to it’s size, supposedly as an adaption for forest flight/Moa hunting. So depending on what measure you choose, eg weight, a bald eagle could be less than half the terror.

[lostlogin]

It’s speculated that they did, and there is a small amount of evidence to support this - cave drawings and word-of-mouth legend among the Māori. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&object...