Down to My Level
A South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus) has turned the tables against its assailant, a young pouākai (Hieraaetus moorei). Her predation attempt has apparently gone horribly wrong; and with the eagle's broken wing, it's the moa that has the upper hand on the ground. Female giant moa were especially large compared to the males, and likely competed for them. Eggs were also enormous. They fed on a variety of tough or high-growing plants cropped with the bill. Their neck was usually held in a horizontal position, sort of like outdated depictions of Diplodocus and similar sauropods, but it could probably lift the head upwards if necessary - and necessary it likely was; as its primary predator attacked from above.
The Fuller's eagle is the largest eagle known to man. Potentially double the weight of the harpy eagle, its large claws were able to penetrate down to a moa's pelvis while hunting. It had proportionally small wings for forest manuverability, chasing, toppling and ripping at the moa until it died. Its prey was so proportionally large compared to it, in fact, that the Fuller's eagle had a bill more like a vulture because it was effectively doing the same thing and shoving its head into giant carcasses - that it made. Both of these animals went extinct in the 1400s, shortly after the Maori settled South Island. They hunted the moa, seemingly driving them to extinction in a very short period. When the moa died out, so did the giant eagles.
