Anomalopteryx didiformis (Little Bush Moa)

[surroundx]

Worthy, Trevor H. and Holdaway, Richard N. (2000). Terrestrial fossil vertebrate faunas from inland Hawke's Bay, North Island, New Zealand. Part 1. Records of the Canterbury Museum 14: 89-154.

[surroundx]

Worthy, Trevor H. (1993). Fossils of Honeycomb Hill. Museum of New Zealand, Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington. 56 pp.

[surroundx]

Göhlich, Ursula B. (2017). Catalogue of the fossil bird holdings of the Bavarian State Collection of Palaeontology and Geology in Munich. Zitteliana 89: 331-349.

[Melanie]

Cloutier, Sackton, Grayson, Edwards, Baker. [2018.] First nuclear genome assembly of an extinct moa species, the little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis). bioRxiv 262816.
[bioRxiv preprint]

[surroundx]

Seersholm, Frederik V. et al. (2018). Subsistence practices, past biodiversity, and anthropogenic impacts revealed by New Zealand-wide ancient DNA survey. PNAS. doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1803573115 [Supplementary information]

[surroundx]

Boev, Zlatozar. (2018). A specimen of little bush moa Anomalopteryx didiformis (Owen, 1844), Emeidae Bonaparte, 1854 from the National Museum of Natural History, Sofia. Historia naturalis bulgarica 32: 3-5.

[Melanie]

Feb 14, 2018 18:56:39 GMT Melanie said:

Cloutier, Sackton, Grayson, Edwards, Baker. [2018.] First nuclear genome assembly of an extinct moa species, the little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis). bioRxiv 262816.
[bioRxiv preprint]

The final print has been published now

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/262816v4

[Melanie]

Jamie R. Wood, Melanie J. Vermeulen, Nicola Bolstridge, Shar Briden, Theresa L. Cole, Jessica Rivera-Perez, Lara D. Shepherd, Nicolas J. Rawlence & Janet M. Wilmshurstaf, 2021

Mid-Holocene coprolites from southern New Zealand provide new insights into the diet and ecology of the extinct little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis)

Quaternary Science Reviews. 263: Article 106992.
doi:10.1016/j.quascirev.2021.106992

Abstract: Mid-Holocene coprolites from southern New Zealand provide new insights into the diet and ecology of the extinct little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis)

Knowledge about the diets of New Zealand's extinct moa (Aves: Dinornithiformes) is heavily biased towards just three species (Dinornis robustus, Megalapteryx didinus and Pachyornis elephantopus), which represent about 90% of all identified coprolites and gizzard content samples. By comparison, the diets of the other six moa species are poorly known. Here, we report the discovery of a new coprolite deposit attributed to little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis) based on DNA barcoding and former moa species distributions. The deposit is the southernmost site from which moa coprolites have been recovered and just the second to contain mid-Holocene specimens. Moreover, the deposit provides the longest known temporal span (∼2200 years) of moa coprolites within a stratigraphic context. Pollen and plant DNA from the coprolites, as well as associated plant macrofossils, indicate that the deposit spans a period when the forest canopy was transitioning from Podocarpaceae to silver beech (Lophozonia menziesii) dominance about 6800–4600 years ago. Our analysis of coprolite content supports the current hypothesis that little bush moa browsed trees and shrubs within the forest understorey, but provides new evidence that ferns were also an important part of their diet. Based on this finding, we suggest that moa might once have played a previously unrecognised role in the dispersal of ground fern spores throughout New Zealand forests.

[Melanie]

Researchers reconstruct genome of extinct species of flightless bird that once roamed the islands of New Zealand


phys.org/news/2024-05-reconstruct-genome-extinct-species-flightless.html

Abstract
We present a draft genome of the little bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis)—one of approximately nine species of extinct flightless birds from Aotearoa, New Zealand—using ancient DNA recovered from a fossil bone from the South Island. We recover a complete mitochondrial genome at 249.9× depth of coverage and almost 900 megabases of a male moa nuclear genome at ~4 to 5× coverage, with sequence contiguity sufficient to identify more than 85% of avian universal single-copy orthologs. We describe a diverse landscape of transposable elements and satellite repeats, estimate a long-term effective population size of ~240,000, identify a diverse suite of olfactory receptor genes and an opsin repertoire with sensitivity in the ultraviolet range, show that the wingless moa phenotype is likely not attributable to gene loss or pseudogenization, and identify potential function-altering coding sequence variants in moa that could be synthesized for future functional assays. This genomic resource should support further studies of avian evolution and morphological divergence.

www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj6823

[Melanie]

Could The Long-Extinct Bush Moa Be Brought Back From The Dead?

www.iflscience.com/could-the-long-extinct-bush-moa-be-brought-back-from-the-dead-74611

[Sebbe]

Augustus Hamilton’s fossil collection at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa.

Augustus Hamilton (1853–1913) was a New Zealand ethnologist and naturalist who amassed a significant collection of fossils, mostly of birds, during his career. Today, those fossils are housed in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (NMNZ). While some fossils have been catalogued and integrated into the collection of the NMNZ, a large part remained unsorted and uncatalogued. The present study brings an integrated view of Hamilton’s collection at the NMNZ, highlighting the most significant fossils. In total, there are 3692 specimen lots collected by Hamilton in the NMNZ representing a large sample of taxa and a wide range of locations around Aotearoa New Zealand. Most fossils are of Holocene age and belong to birds. The collection includes type specimens, circa 250 specimen lots belonging to extinct species, and specimens belonging to otherwise poorly represented species in natural history collections. We hope that our study makes Hamilton’s fossils visible and more readily available for future research.

tuhinga.arphahub.com/article/97731/

[Sebbe]

Thickness histograms of Holocene fossil eggshell fragments indicate diversity and relative abundance of moas (Aves: Dinornithiformes) at North Island sites.

Moa eggshell fragments from 13 North Island sites (New Zealand), were 0.54–1.74 mm thick (n = 6036). Thicknesses with published DNA-identifications overlapped greatly between the four North Island species, but median thicknesses were separate: Pachyornis geranoides thinnest, Dinornis novaezealandiae thickest, and Euryapteryx curtus and Anomalopteryx didiformis in the middle, but with the former slightly thinner. Thickness histograms for regional samples of unidentified moa eggshell fragments, each had one of four thickness patterns: Type A (thin eggshell only), Type B (thick eggshell only), Type C (medium-thickness eggshell only), and Type D (all thicknesses present). The Gisborne site, poorly-known from moa bones, had a similar thickness profile (Type D, skewed towards thin shell) to North Cape and Tokerau Beach implying a similar moa fauna. Eggshell thicknesses suggested that D. novaezealandiae was absent at Port Jackson (Type A histogram) and that P. geranoides was absent at Whananaki (Type B pattern) and rare at Herbertville (Type D, skewed towards thick shell). Thickness analysis for eggshell from a Lake Taupo archaeological site suggested that few eggs of just one species were involved, whereas a wide spread of shell thicknesses for a Great Mercury Island site implied a contribution from several species.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03014223.2021.1970585