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Story: Moa

Moa bone

Image
Moa bone

These are the lithographed images of the bone fragment that accompanied Richard Owen’s article, ‘Notice of a fragment of a gigantic bird of New Zealand’. The article was published in the Transactions of the Zoological Society of London in 1839 and proclaimed to the world that a huge bird had once lived in New Zealand.

Using this item

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Reference: Transactions of the Zoological Society of London 3 (1839): p.33

Permission of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page

Trevor H. Worthy, Moa – Moa and people, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/artwork/11389/moa-bone (accessed 24 June 2026).

Story by Trevor H. Worthy, published 1 March 2009.