Credit: © The Royal Society
    Image number: RS.10562
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    Skeletons of Moa and man

    Date
    1879
    Creator - Organisation
    Lyttelton Times, Lithographers
    Object type
    Library reference
    42471
    Material
    Technique
    Dimensions
    height (print): 250mm
    width (print): 170mm
    Subject
    Content object
    human body
       > skeleton
    nature
       > animal
          > bird
    Description
    Comparative view of skeletons, the largest a variety of the extinct flightless bird the Moa, here styled Dinornis maximus (Owen) according to a classification by Julius von Haast. It is possibly the South Island Giant Moa Dinornis robustus. Shown with the skeleton of a member of the Moriori people of the Chatham Islands in the Pacific Ocean, intended to illustrate the relative heights of human Moa hunters and birds.

    Plate 8 from Geology of the provinces of Canterbury and Westland, New Zealand by Julius von Haast (Christchurch, 1879).

    The plate is inscribed: ‘SKELETON OF DINORNIS MAXIMUS (OWEN) with that of a MORIORI (CHATHAM ISLANDS,) FOR COMPARISON. Lyttelton Times lith.’

    Sir [Johann Franz] Julius von Haast] (1822-1887) German geologist active in New Zealand was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1867.
    Associated place
    <The World>
       > Oceania
          > New Zealand
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