Before the formidable bird went extinct, scientists say, it likely hunted the islands’ flightless moa. Now evidence suggests the eagle was part of a wave of feathered invaders, and its story holds lessons for today and the future.
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Scientists now believe that this superlative bird was one in a wave of feathered invaders that conquered New Zealand over a relatively short period. And this was not the only wave of invasions. Haast’s eagle — despite being gone for centuries — has revealed that we live in a much more connected world than we once thought, says biologist Michael Knapp of the University of Otago, who has studied the eagle.
In 2005, a team of scientists published a paper that compared DNA sequences extracted from two Haast’s eagle fossils to the genomes of 16 modern eagles. The scientists ascertained that theincluded Australian species, as expected. The genomic data suggested that the family tree had split within the past few million years. Subsequent analysis has put the divergence time around 2.2 million years ago.
Biologists were surprised to learn that the little eagle, which weighs a mere 2 pounds, is among the Haast’s eagle’s closest living relatives. A comparison of the birds’ claws shows the drastic difference in size.
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