by David Day
Although both the British and French expeditions recorded hundreds of new species, the Giant Moas were not among them. Joel S. Polack’s account is the first published acknowledgement of the existence of these giant birds. Polack was a trader in New Zealand between 1834 and 1837. In 1838, Polack published his two-volume History of New Zealand, in which he said he had found bones of a large ostrich-like bird, and added that the Maori claimed that in times not long past “very large birds existed, but the scarcity of animal food, as well as the easy method of entrapping them, has caused their extermination.”
Reverend William Williams – 1839
Williams’ Journal , Cloudy Bay, New Zealand
The natives there had mentioned to an Englishman of a whaling party that there was a bird of extraordinary size to be seen only at night on the side of a hill near there; and that he, with the native and a second Englishman, went to the spot; that after waiting some time they saw the creature at some little distance, which they describe as being fourteen or sixteen feet high. One of the men proposed to go nearer and shoot, but his companion was so exceedingly terrified, or perhaps both of them, that they were satisfied with looking at him, when in a little time he took alarm and strode up the mountain.
The Reverend William Williams was a Protestant missionary to the Bay of Islands in New Zealand who had translated the New Testament into Maori. Williams also compiled a Maori-English dictionary and built the first church in Poverty Bay. In the summer of 1838, Williams spent many months travelling in the East Cape district of the North Island (with another amateur naturalist, and printer, William Colenso) and recorded this incident near Waipapu.
In 1839 a traveller named John Rule obtained a 10-inch section of thigh bone of some huge creature in New Zealand and brought it back to Britain. He gave the bone to Richard Owen, an authority on prehistoric animals and the man who coined the word “Dinosaur.” The bone was so massive that it looked like an ox’s thigh bone. Owen initially thought this was a joke, but further examination convinced him that this was the leg bone of an unknown giant ostrich-like bird. In November 1839, Owen delivered a lecture to the Zoological Society of London in which he boldly asserted that New Zealand was once inhabited by an undiscovered species, a giant flightless bird.
Remarkably, only weeks after Owen’s prophetic lecture, a shipment of Moa bones collected by the Reverend William Williams and fellow missionary the Reverend Richard Taylor reached England. These bones immediately confirmed Owen’s analysis and made him famous overnight. Owen gained royal recognition and became one of the chief forces behind the creation of the British Natural History Museum at South Kensington.
William Colenso – 1842
Journal of Natural History, New Zealand
I heard from the natives of a certain monstrous animal; while some said it was a bird, and others a person, all agreed that it was called a Moa; and that in general appearance it somewhat resembled an immense domestic cock, with the difference, however, that if anyone ventured to approach the dwelling of this wonderful creature, he would be invariably trampled on and killed by it.
In 1841, William Colenso returned to New Zealand to search for more Moa relics. He went down the east coast of the North Island, asking Maoris to help him find evidence of these birds. He recovered five Moa thigh bones and a large number of Maori myths about these great birds and returned with them to Britain in 1842. Colenso was the first to record the name “Moa,” although there is some evidence to suggest the authentic Maori name may have been “Tarepo.”
In 1844, the British Governor FitzRoy spoke with an 85-year-old Maori named Haumatangi who claimed to remember the second visit of Captain Cook in 1773, and stated that the last Moa in his part of New Zealand had been seen two years before Cook’s arrival. Another Maori, Kawana Papai, said he had himself taken part in Moa hunts when he was a boy about 1790. He said the birds were rounded up and killed with spears. He claimed they were dangerous to hunt, as the Moa defended itself fiercely with vigorous kicks; but as they had to stand on one leg to kick, Maori hunters would strike at the supporting leg and bring it to ground.
Excavations of other early tribal settlements have uncovered charred Moa bones and Moa eggs utilized as water bottles by native peoples. And in 1859, miners made the remarkable discovery of a Maori tomb containing a skeleton of a chieftain placed in a sitting position with its skeletal hands clutching a large Moa egg measuring 10 inches by 7 inches. Later still, in 1939 – a century after the first European acknowledgement of these semi-mythical birds – excavations by New Zealanders Roger Duff and Robert Falla in Pyramid Valley on the South Island resulted in the discovery of over 140 complete skeletons of six distinct Moa species.
Reverend Richard Taylor, M. A., F. G. S – 1855
Te Ika A Mauri – New Zealand and Its Inhabitants
Of all the birds that have once existed in New Zealand, by far the most remarkable is the Moa. Perhaps it is the largest bird which ever had existence, at least during the more recent period of the earth’s history; and it is by no means certain that it is even now extinct! I first discovered its remains in 1839, at Tauronga, and now Waipau. These bones were of recent but undeterminable age. However, Mr Meurant, employed by the Government as Native interpreter, stated to me that in the latter end of 1823, he saw the flesh of the Moa in Molyneux harbour; since that period, he has seen feathers of the same bird in the Native’s hair. They were a black or dark colour, with purple edge, having quills like those of the Albatross in size, but much coarser. He saw a Moa bone which reached four inches above his hip from the ground and as thick as his knee, with flesh and sinews upon it. The flesh looked like beef. The slaves who were from the interior, said that it was still to be found inland. A man named George Pauley, now living in Fareaux Straits told him he had seen the Moa, which he described as being an immense monster, standing about twenty feet high. He saw it near a lake in the interior. It ran from him and he also from it. He saw its footmarks before he came to the river Tairi, and the mountains.
The Reverend Richard Taylor arrived as a missionary on the East Coast and the Bay of Islands in New Zealand with the Reverend William Williams. When Taylor made the voyage to England with the manuscript of his history of New Zealand in 1855, he brought with him the Maori Chief Hoani Wiremu Hipango and gained an audience with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Over the next decade, Sir Richard Owen classified, reconstructed, and named many of the Moa species. Owen gave these giant birds a scientific name to match their size: Dinornis or “Terror Bird” – which is comparable to his name for prehistoric reptiles: “Dinosaur” or “Terror Lizard.” He named six of the dozen species now known. These were: Dinornis robustus, D. elephantopus, D. crassus, D. giganteus and D. gracilis (i.e., robust, elephant-footed, fat, giant, and slender Moa). Finally there was the Dinornis maximus – the Giant Moa measuring 12 to 14 feet tall and a quarter ton in weight. This was taller than the Aepyornis maximus of Madagascar, but at a quarter ton, only about half the weight of the Elephant Bird.
THE EXCAVATION
Giant Moa – 1850
The earth is pulled up like a coffin lid
Bones like unstrung bows
And a battlefield of broken spearshafts
Giant shin bones cracked
Like diviners’ yarrow stalks
Beaks like shattered spearheads
The hexagrams of this dry graveyard swamp
I saw the broad clawed footprint
Of the giant bird in clay
Beneath the hump of the hill
That shadows the valley
Later we found a ring of Moa skulls
With a hunched chieftain’s skeleton at its centre
Clutched in his spidery grip:
A great Moa egg
Like the dragon pearl
That is the Maori moon
Sap of the veronica wood
They called “Moa’s blood”
They roasted Moa flesh on its fires
Whe
n an enemy was defiant at the death
They called him “fierce as the Moa”
And when the white man came
And the Maoris fell
When pestilence and war broke them
And all their world was ending
They cried out, “Ka ngaro I te ngaro a te Moa”
Alas, we are “lost as the Moa is lost”
In this valley I am shaken
By a vision rising
Like the dragon pearl moon
Eclipsing, for a dark hour
The bright noonday sun
GALAPAGOS MUTTON
THIRD WATCH 2 P. M. SEXT
FLOREANA ISLAND GALAPAGOS TORTOISE – 1876
Chelonoidis nigra nigra
William Dampier – 1684
New Voyage Round the World
The Tortoises on these Isles are so numerous that 500 or 600 men might subsist on them alone for several months without any other sort of provision. They are extraordinarily large and fat, and so sweet that no pullet eats more pleasantly. One of the largest of these creatures will weigh 150-200 lb and some of them are two foot or two foot six inches over the carapace or belly.
The Galapagos Archipelago is a group of strange volcanic islands unvisited by humans until their discovery by the Spanish in 1535. Thereafter, they were exploited for food and water by passing ships. However, for centuries they remained largely unoccupied except by adventurers and pirates who used the islands as a base for attacking Spanish treasure ships. From the end of the 17th to the middle of the 18th centuries, the Galapagos Islands served as a haven for English buccaneers like William Dampier.
Dampier must have dined upon very immature specimens of Galapagos Tortoises in his travels, unless he was describing the weight and size of the meat alone taken from these animals. Mature male Galapagos Tortoises were commonly 300 kilograms or 700 lbs in weight and females around 180 kilos or 400 lbs. The largest recorded specimens weighed in excess of 400 kilos or nearly 900 lbs and measured 1.9 metres or over six feet in length. The original Tortoise population of these islands was approximately one quarter of a million, but by 1900 this was reduced to less than 3,000 in the entire archipelago.
Dampier was the first man to sail around the world three times, and his New Voyage Round the World was the first round the world travelogue and sold four editions in its first two years. It made him a celebrity in British literary and intellectual circles. On 6 August 1698, John Evelyn wrote: “I dined with Mr Samuel Pepys, where was Captain Dampier, who had been a famous buccaneer, and printed a relation of his very strange adventure, and his observations. He seemed a more modest man than one would imagine by the relation of the crew he had assorted with.” One of the classics of maritime writing, William Dampier’s New Voyage Round the World was acknowledged as a great inspiration for explorers like Captain James Cook and Captain George Vancouver, as well as authors such as Daniel Defoe, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Joseph Conrad.
SANTA FE ISLAND GALAPAGOS TORTOISE – 1890
Chelonoidis nigra barringtoni
Amasa Delano – 1801
Voyages of Commerce and Discovery
The Terrapin, or Land Tortoise found here is by far, the largest, best and most numerous of any place I have visited. Some of the largest weigh three or four hundred pounds; but their common size is between fifty and one hundred pounds. They have a very long neck, which, together with their head, has a very disagreeable appearance, very much resembling a large serpent. I have seen them with necks between two and three feet long, and when they saw anything new to them, or met each other, they would raise their heads as high as they could, their necks being nearly vertical, and advance with their mouths wide open, appearing to be the most spiteful of any reptile whatever. I was put in the same kind of fear that I felt at the sight or near approach of a snake when I first saw a very large one. I had a musket in my hand at the time, at the touch of the muzzle of which, he dropped himself upon the ground and instantly secured all his limbs within his shell. They are perfectly harmless, as much so as any animal I know of, notwithstanding their threatening appearance. They have not teeth, and of course they cannot bite very hard. They take their food into their mouths by the assistance of the sharp edge of the upper and under jaw, so as to nip grass, flowers, berries, or shrubbery – the only food they eat.
Amasa Delano was the Bostonian captain of the Perseverance who wrote of his stay in Galapagos in his Voyages of Commerce and Discovery (1789-1807). As Delano acknowledged, exploitation of Giant Galapagos Tortoises for food or oil was practiced by every passing ship. Today four Galapagos Land Tortoise subspecies are listed as extinct. However, recent genetic analysis has brought many classifications into dispute. It also brings into question just when a species is considered extinct. For example, the Floreana Island Tortoise definitely became extinct on Floreana Island by 1876. However, in January 2012, genetic fingerprinting of Isabella Island Tortoises revealed a number of surviving mixed-race or hybrid Floreana-Isabella Tortoises.
FERNANDINO ISLAND GALAPAGOS TORTOISE – 1906
Chelonaidis nigra phantastica
Admiral David Porter – 1812
A Cruise to the Pacific Coast
Before engaging in battle, the British ship cleared her decks by heaving overboard her cargo of live elephant tortoises. A few days afterwards we were so fortunate to find ourselves surrounded by about 50 of them which we picked up and brought on board, as they had been lying in the same place where they had been thrown over, incapable of any exertion in that element, except that of stretching out their long necks.
David Porter, the Admiral of the American Pacific Fleet, reported this event in the aftermath of an engagement with a British ship in the Pacific waters north of the Galapagos during the War of 1812. In 1823, Captain Benjamin Morrel wrote an account which explains why a British man-of-war in the Pacific would take on such a large cargo of live tortoises: “I have taken many tons of these animals on board my own vessels from 5-6 months without once taking on food or water. They have been known to live unfed on some whaling ships for 14 months without any apparent diminution of health or weight.”
The maximum lifespan of these Giant Land Tortoises is unknown. However, the longest-lived Pacific Galapagos Tortoise – affectionately known as “Harriet” – was a Santa Cruz Tortoise (Chelonaidis nigra porteri) taken from the island in 1835 by Charles Darwin. Harriet was later given to the HMS Beagle’s First Lieutenant John Clement Wickham and brought to Australia. Eventually, Harriet found a home in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens until her death at the age of 176 on 19 May 2006.
Strangely enough, the oldest Indian Ocean Tortoise died just one month later. This was the famous Aldabra Tortoise (Aldabrachelys gigantean), known as Adwaita (Sanskrit for the “One and Only”). Taken captive in 1750 for the menagerie of “Clive of India,” One-and-Only died in the Alipore Zoo in Kolkata, India, on 23 June 2006 at the age of 250 years.
Another ancient Tortoise was the 188 year old Tonga specimen, named Tu’i Malila or “Little King.” Tu’I Malila was presented to the King and Queen of Tonga by Captain James Cook in 1777. Tu’i Malila lived in Tonga’s royal gardens until his death on 19 May 1965. Although considered one of the most beautiful of Tortoises, with its golden star-patterned shell, the Little King was not a giant, but a medium-sized (35 lb) Madagascar Radiated Tortoise (Geochelone radiate).
PINTA ISLAND GALAPAGOS TORTOISE – 1971
Chelonoidis nigra abingdoni
Charles Darwin – 1835
Voyage of the Beagle
I will first describe the habits of the tortoise, which has been so frequently alluded to. These animals are found, I believe, on all the islands of the Archipelago. The inhabitants believe these animals are absolutely deaf; certainly they do not hear a person walking close behind them. I was always amused when overtaking one of the great monsters, as it was quietly pacing along, to see how suddenly, the instant I passed, it would draw in its head and legs, and uttering a deep hiss fall t
o the ground with a heavy sound, as if struck dead. I frequently got on their backs, and then giving a few raps on the hinder part of their shells, they would rise up and walk away; but I found it very hard to keep my balance.
Charles Darwin found in the Galapagos a perfect natural laboratory of evolution when he visited in 1835. His observations there enabled him to put forward in The Origin of the Species his revolutionary theory of evolution by natural selection. Darwin wrote concerning the tortoises’ immense size: “Mr Lawson, an Englishman, and vice-governor of the colony, told us that he had seen several so large, that it required six or eight men to lift them from the ground; and that some had afforded as much as two hundred pounds of meat… . The tortoises when thirsty are obliged to travel long distances. Hence broad and well-beaten paths branch off in every direction from the wells down to the sea coast; and the Spaniards by following them up, first discovered the watering-places.”
