In 1839, Richard Owen showed the Zoological Society of London a 6-inch fragment of shin bone from New Zealand and deduced a giant, flightless bird about the size of an ostrich. Within a few years, a crate of much larger moa bones reached the Hunterian Museum, including leg bones nearly 3 feet long, confirming his prediction. 🦴🦤
Richard Owen predicts a giant moa from a shin-bone fragment (1839)
Key facts
- On 12 November 1839, Richard Owen showed the Zoological Society of London a 15-centimetre (about six-inch) fragment of shin bone from New Zealand and deduced a giant, flightless bird roughly the size of an ostrich.
- The Zoological Society published his account only on condition that Owen alone accepted responsibility for it.
- On 19 January 1843, a crate of moa bones reached the Hunterian Museum, including leg bones nearly three feet long, very large vertebrae and ribs about the size of a man's forearm.
- Owen's 1844 formal description named the bird Dinornis, a name normally translated as 'terrible bird'.
- Julius von Haast later excavated large quantities of moa skeletons from Canterbury swamps on New Zealand's South Island.
- A moa foot retaining skin and scales was found in a cave near Queenstown in 1878.
- Several complete, articulated moa skeletons were excavated at Pyramid Valley in 1938 and dated to roughly six centuries earlier.
Sources
Giant Moa Skeletonyorkshiremuseum.org.uk
In 1839, the anatomist and palaeontologist Richard Owen. He published his theory with the Zoological Society of London: calling them Dinornis robustus – the ...
Richard Owen - Wikispecies - Wikimediaspecies.wikimedia.org
Richard Owen (1804–1892), British biologist and palaeontologist. Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London. Owen, R. 1839. Proceedings of the Zoological ...
Owen, Richard, 1804-1892biodiversitylibrary.org
By: Owen, Richard, - Bennett, George,. Edition: Publication info: London, Zoological Society?, 1842. Volume: Series: Holding Institution: Smithsonian ...
Richard Owen's Reaction to Transmutation in the 1830'sjstor.org
by A Desmond · 1985 · Cited by 33 — Zoological journal and was a founding member of the Zoological Society. 5 ... forced to a head between December 1838 and January 1839 when Owen and the ...
Professor Megalow's Dinosaur Bones: Richard Owen and ...publicdomainreview.org
When it was presented to Owen in 1839, he declared that this femur belonged to a then-unidentified ostrich-like bird. these giant, flightless ...
Richard Owen | Moateara.govt.nz
Owen had been given a 15-centimetre bone in 1839 (he is holding it in his right hand), and from this deduced that a large flightless bird had ...
Portrait of Richard Owen with skeleton of the giant moaartsandculture.google.com
English biologist, comparative anatomist and paleontologist Richard Owen (1804-1892) stands next to the skeleton of a giant moa (Dinornis Maximus). Owen ...
Richard Owen and the Moa - Dinosaur Tracks Discoverydinotracksdiscovery.org
In 1839, after examining a fossilized bone fragment from New Zealand, the English paleontologist and anatomist Richard Owen declared that because the ...
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