Swoop like an eagle, eat like a vulture
The researchers found that its beak was stronger than living vultures, and more similar to the wedge-tailed eagle. However, its skull would have been less able to cope with tearing flesh by shaking its prey, like eagles, and instead would have had to pull meat from the bone more like vultures.
It suggests that while Haast's eagle may have attacked moa like an eagle, it would have fed on them like a vulture. In particular, it is likely to have delivered the killing blow using its beak, unlike eagles which prefer to use their claws.
'Moa were really big but once they were knocked over, they were quite easy to subdue,' Joanne says. 'It's thought the attacks knocked them over, or that the Moa were attacked when stuck in swamps.
'When they were immobilised the eagles focused on the back of the neck, which is a relatively weak spot and out of the range of the moa's feet.
'Haast's eagle couldn't kill moa outright with its feet due to the size, but it could do a lot of damage and the use of the beak finishes it off.'
While other eagles fly away with their prey, the sheer size of the moa meant that wasn't an option. Instead, it's likely that the eagles would have eaten the moa's internal organs at the site, with Maori cave art suggesting that, like vultures, Haast's eagle had a featherless head to help with this.
The arrival of humans around 750 years ago signalled the beginning of the end for the eagle. The destruction of their forest habitat by Polynesian settlers, as well as hunting of the moa, is likely to have brought the eagle into conflict with man.
'The eagle had the possibility to hunt people,' Joanne says. 'It's hard to imagine a bird in that role but if it could successfully hunt a 250kg moa, then 80kg humans were possibly on the menu. There is oral tradition which suggests it was the case.'
While it is unknown when Haast's eagle finally went extinct, with some suggestions a pair were killed as late as the 1860s, its end left a unique hole in the world's biodiversity. As Joanne says, 'There's nothing really like it in the world anymore.'
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The world's largest eagle hunted unlike any other bird of prey - The Natural History Museum
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