Day 236: Ancient Inspiration

One of my favorite places to look for inspiration is really old stuff. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction, and when it is, you can be pretty sure that it'll have unique stories hidden somewhere, waiting to be dug out. Take for example, this exhibit at the Te Papa museum in Wellington New Zealand of a Moa bird.

A gargantuan flightless bird native to New Zealand that weighed up to an estimated 550 pounds, grew up to 12 feet tall, and roamed the earth millions of years ... wait, no actually that's not true. Usually we see a giant skeleton and assume it must be extremely old, prehistoric at least, right? Not this time. This monster existed alongside mankind up to about the 13th or 14th century, when they were hunted to extinction after the arrival of humans in New Zealand. How one would see such an animal and think 'yeah, I should probably go pick a fight with that one' I have no idea though. Want to know something even stranger? There was another bird that went extinct right along with them. The Haast's Eagle.

If you're wondering why it appears to be attacking the Moa in this recreation, that's because it is. The Haast's Eagle, a 30 pound bird with an almost 10 foot wingspan, had a strange pick for its prey. Not only were they capable of bringing down Moa, they did so regularly, preying on the titans as their main source of food. When the Moa population dwindled, so did the Haast's Eagle. Sadly, nothing is left but their bones.

If you wrote a fantasy novel and included a scene where a 30 pound bird took down a towering, 12-foot beast with the mass of a bear and a sledgehammer for a head, everybody who read it would laugh you out of the writing business. If you said they did it regularly, it be even worse. And if it was their main source of food? Get out of here. But nature shucks such conventional thinking. If an Eagle is hungry, it's hungry. Logic steps aside and let's this David and Goliath showdown play out for us to witness with our own eyes, giving us hints about what is really possible. If a 30 pound animal can prey on a 500 pound animal, but nobody will believe it until they see it, what other assumptions about the food chain do we have wrong just because the alternatives are too outlandish?

Thank you for reading,

Benjamin Hawley