Graya
Anomalopteryx didiformis is an extinct flightless bird colloquially known as the lesser moa, little bush moa, or bush moa. It was the smallest known species of moa, only slightly taller than a turkey. A slender bird, it weighed around 30 kilograms (66 lb). It inhabited much of the North Island and small sections of the South Island of New Zealand. It habitated the dense lowland conifer, broad-leafed Southern beech forests and scrubland.
It possessed a sturdy, sharp-edged beak, suggesting that its diet was made up of twigs and other tough plant material.Native predators included the Haast's eagle and Eyles' harrier. The species went extinct alongside other native New Zealand wildlife around 500-600 years ago, following the arrival and proliferation of the Maori people in New Zealand, as well as the introduction of Polynesian dogs.As with all moa, they have with a sternum without a keel. They also have a distinctive palate. The most complete remains, a partially articulated skeleton with substantial mummified tissue and feathers were discovered in 1980 in Lake Echo Valley, east of Te Anau, Southland. It is now in the Southland Museum and Art Gallery, in Invercargill. Anomalopteryx fossils made up the bulk of moa fossils discovered in a swamp in 1912 in Clevedon.Scientists at Harvard University assembled the first nearly complete genome of the species from toe bones. Thus bringing the species a step closer to being "resurrected" in the future.
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