Creature Feature: Haast's Eagle.

My current Environmental Sustainability professor specializes in invasive species. He was on the committee for the update to the Lacey Act that covered Burmese and rock pythons alongside the yellow anaconda. Here in Chicago, we also have Japanese beetles and Asian carp. For some reason, we do allow mutant rats with shirts to run around the streets like crazy, but I digress.

A lot of people overlook what happens when humans become an invasive species. Let's not even count the animals that humans bring with. In gaming terms, humans, as a species, are broken - that is, overpowered. Even amazingly cool things can be disrupted by the presence of one human tribe. Humans rarely travel alone, after all. 

New Zealand and Australia were among the hardest places hit by human invasion. The moa, one particular type of ratite found on New Zealand, was the main prey item of a very, very, very large eagle:

 

The Haast's Eagle (Harpagornis moorei) was the biggest eagle that ever lived. It had a 2-3 meter wingspan, was approximately a meter and a half from head to tail, and stood higher than most dogs. The wings were actually a bit short for a bird that big, but they allowed the eagle to maneuver in its forest habitat. Regardless, it came down so hard and fast upon moa that they did not know what hit them. It was said to attack as fast as 80 km/h (or 50 mph). Big, fast, and deadly, this thing would make a good "deadliest animal" opponent versus, oh...a lioness, maybe? Wish I had a simulator.

Hell, if Maori legend is correct, this bird may have killed humans. There are no confirmed reports, but if it can take on a bird many times it size and possibly eat the whole kill, it could certainly kill off an idiot with his iPod. Gandalf's eagle? Yeah, it was kinda like the Haast's Eagle, and still native to New Zealand.

NOW I know why white mages can use necromancy. Nicely done, Gandalf!

 

The reason for this bird's extinction was the introduction of men who did not yet have iPods to distract them. Even without modern tech, humanity effectively wiped out the moa, the Haast's eagle's main source of food. Moas were the rough equivalent of deer or other large herbivorous mammals on other continents. There were several species, all of which were completely wingless. This is entry is not about them, but bear with me.

The arrival of humans was a two-pronged attack on the moa population: one, moa were about as intelligent and delicious as giant chickens, and two, the Maori needed to clear the forest for slash-and-burn agriculture. Deforestation and hunting moa were what killed most of the species off in less than a century. This was done by one of the 'innocent' native tribes, remember. No Europeans were involved, but to be fair, they did not help the New Zealand ecology any. 

Europeans were the unnecessary crotch kick to the bird-based ecology of New Zealand. We, the Caucasians, likely contributed to the moa going extinct - and, by extension, the Haast's Eagle by 1400. We also brought over small mammals, which screwed things up further. To be fair, we also realized that the kakapo were adorable and endangered, so the white man gets a few brownie points.



One predator so efficiently killing off the moa doomed the Haast's Eagle to extinction. Had this been in any other era, there would be wildlife federations protecting this bird. They could totally have used the Lord of the Rings series to raise awareness that, yes, New Zealand did in fact have giant eagles. Also, there is a high chance that someone would have figured out how to domesticate moa, and thus we would have wingless chocobos. "Giant eagles and chocobos" sounds like a good time. 

Creature Feature: Arabian Ostrich.

Those of you familiar with Sappho 1 are probably aware of Aphrodite's sparrow-drawn chariot.
If that sounded weird to you, don't worry, there's a reason for that: The word used, "struthio," can refer to two completely different birds. One of them is, obviously, a sparrow; the other is an ostrich, quite possibly the Arabian Ostrich (Struthio camelus syriacus):


Wark?

The fuck? How did the word for 'sparrow' become the word for 'ostrich,' too? Do not ask me to explain why the Greek language evolved that way; I honestly haven't the foggiest. Really, though, the "ostrich" part of struthio has a dinosaur to go with it; it's kinda weird that the translations of Sappho 1 that I have read only use "sparrow."


"Sparrow mimic" my ass.

Enough with my language lessons. The Arabian Ostrich was, as its name indicates, an ostrich native to the Near East. The main thing distinguishing it from the larger African Ostrich was a slightly smaller size (as well as a possibly lighter female). There were two distinct subpopulations: One near Arabia, Syria, and Iraq and another closer to Africa.


By the way, Disney cannot sex ostriches worth a crap. This is a male; Disney's Prince of Persia called it a female. You'd think an ostrich racer would know what sexes his birds were.

This bird, being native to the area, was featured prominently in Sumerian culture. They used the bird for sacrifices and painted its eggs into the most awesome Easter eggs ever. (Except they were not used for Easter, obviously.) It was traded as far as Etruria (central Italy) by the Sumerians, and later went all the way to China.



The Jews also cited it as a bad parent (in contrast to the stork that brings babies) because the female left the nest so often. Yeah, ostrich eggs have a nice hard shell, and human babies are weak, noisy little poop bags. It's hard to not anthropomorphize at times, but when your offspring are that different, the analogy falls flat.

Islamic culture saw this bird as a representation of status. Like the aurochs, it became classy to hunt Arabian ostriches.If killed in a certain way, it was also A-OK to eat ostrich meat...what? They're basically giant chickens.

The Greeks and Romans would have been aware of both the Arabian and African populations. The Romans in particular used the Arabian ostrich in venationes, hunting games held in Roman amphitheaters.

It is easy to see why this bird went extinct. Over-hunting, using its eggs as art, and use in Roman games all contributed to the bird's extinction. The last known individual died in 1966. Its niche will not go unfilled; captive-bred Somali Ostriches are being released into the areas where the Arabian Ostrich once flourished.

 Now I have the image of Aphrodite in a chariot drawn by chocobos in my head. Could someone please get it out? (I thought my chocobo jokes were over. I was wrong.)

Creature Feature: Rheas.

How silly of me. All this talk of giant flightless birds and I forgot the one that most people do not even know about.



No, that is not an ostrich. It is a ratite, yes, but rheas (genus Rhea) are birds of a different color. They are much smaller than the ostrich and range over most, if not all, of South America. Despite the presence of mammalian predators, rheas are very common birds throughout most of their range.

The rhea is one of the smaller ratites, second only to the kiwi. This is, of course, relative to the other ratites -ostriches, emus, and cassowaries are bigger, but the males of the Greater Rhea can still get around 5 feet in height. The American/Greater Rhea (Rhea americana) is still the heaviest bird in America.


IN AMERICA.

As one would expect, the people of South America use the rhea for meat. Insofar as I know, they do not ride them...yet.


Give it time. (I swear this is the last chocobo joke.)

Creature Feature: Elephant Bird.

Birds are always the first species to die if humans come on to a crazy island. It happened to the moa, it happened to the dodo, and it happened to two whole genera of giant bird.

The elephant birds - genera Aepyornis and Mullerornis - were ratites (i.e. ostrich-like birds) native to Madagascar. The biggest and most-known elephant bird, Aepyornis maximus, stood about ten feet tall and weighed over 800 pounds. The eggs of this bird were huge - a little more than a yard in circumference (1 meter...stupid U.S. measurements, making no sense) with a length of up to 13 inches.


Pictured: Two eggs and one egghead.

If the name rings a bell, the term 'elephant bird' is also used to describe the rukh (AKA 'roc') from the story of Sinbad. The bird was supposedly large enough to carry elephants into its nest. (In all likelihood, Marco Polo saw a different giant bird, or perhaps assumed that the elephant birds were chicks of a larger, more airworthy bird. The guy mistook a rhinoceros for a unicorn, but was he really dense enough to think that elephant birds could fly?)


HOLY CARP that is an awesome roc! THANK YOU KOREA!

This bird, like the Komodo dragon, was a known case of insular gigantism. It is not at all uncommon for there to be either unusually large or unusually small animals on islands when compared to their mainland counterparts. (For an example of insular dwarfism, look up Jampea reticulated pythons.) Insular gigantism in particular results from a lack of mammalian predators - including humans.

This did not end well.

The presence of humans usually causes a sharp decline in megafauna. Sometimes, this is brought on by over-hunting. Other times, the fauna that humans bring with them kill off the indigenous life. Still other times, humans just speed up a situation that could have brought the animals under threat.

All three factors are thought to have caused the elephant birds to die out. Elephant bird eggshells are often found near old fires; chickens and guinea fowl may have spread diseases to the giant birds; given the widespread nature of these birds, climate change probably put extra pressure on them. This was not a case of stupid cavemen wiping out their giant prey animals, either; the elephant bird lived at least into the 17th century.


Why couldn't the natives have bred them into chocobos? Nobody would make those extinct. Nobody.

It turns out that at least one species of tree may have needed the elephant birds to help disperse their seeds, similar to how some trees in Australia need death machines cassowaries to bring about the next generation. Our bad, Madagascar.

Creature Feature: Cassowaries!

I love ratites. Always have.

I also love Australian fauna. Always have.

It was not long, then, before I did my first Australian ratite on this page. It's not that I do not like flying birds, but ratites - the classification of flightless birds containing ostriches, emus, cassowaries, kiwis and rheas - have always had a special place in my heart. Perhaps it's because they defy what we expect a bird to be.

The cassowary (specifically the double-wattled cassowary, the largest and most notorious species) takes the cake for my favorite ratite ever. I dressed up as one for Halloween one year, and a misspelled version (I forget why it was misspelled) was my first AOL user name. This is going to be one of those entries that comes from the heart.

So let's get to it, shall we?

Some of you probably immediately went, "wow, what a weird-looking bird!" It's approximately what you'd get if you crossed a hadrosaur and a turkey (with some LSD for good measure). That is not too far from the truth - ratites are some of the dinosaurs' closest living relatives...


...and holy crap, WOW, does it show in the cassowary! Not only does that crest (called a 'casque') look VERY much like a dinosaur's headgear, its toes were taken straight off of a Velociraptor. Those claws are not just for show; the cassowary is the most dangerous bird in existence for a reason.



Luckily, its forelimbs are all but useless; like all other ratites, its wings are so small that it cannot fly. Even if it did somehow grow sufficient wings, it lacks the keel that would allow for flight muscles.

Even its vestigial wings are unique. Six flight feathers from when these guys were airborne dinosaurs have been retained as long, hollow spines. Cassowaries also possess a vestigial finger on each wing. This phenomenon is rare among birds; another nearly-prehistoric species, the hoatzin, has clawed digits at birth, but loses them when mature. Trust me, that one will get its own entry eventually.

As described in the video, these intelligent birds are actually herbivores. They eat fruit, bugs, and other harmless things. There are several plants that benefit from the cassowary's eating habits (and, consequently, defecation habits) for seed dispersal and fertilization. It helps the seeds of one particular plant, Ryparosa, germinate. As with most rain forest creatures, habitat destruction has decreased its population significantly. Your mileage may vary regarding the cassowary population, but, lethal or no, they are part of Australia's natural ecology.

When even the giant chickens can kill you, you know you're in Australia. Or Indonesia. (Indonesia might need its own tag, soon.)