New Zealand Birds
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11001-45811 Haast's eagle (Hieraaetus moorei) skull of female. This extinct eagle was thought to have evolved from a very small ancestor in less than a million years. It was a fifteen-fold increase in size, and a record breaking example of island gigantism. Widespread in the South Island in the Pleistocene, its range contracted so that in the Holocene it only occurred in mountainous areas, and east of the Southern Alps *
Haastseagle45811HieraaetusHarpagornisAquilamooreiextinctskullgiant