What’s the only bird that had no wings?

The moa – the tallest bird that ever lived.

South Island giant moa could stretch to 3 metres tall. They weighed 240 kilos. An ostrich weighs only about 150 kilos.

The large skeletons here are models, but you can touch a real moa bone in this space.

Only one animal was big and strong enough to prey on moa.

Look up! Pouākai, or Haast’s eagle, was the largest eagle ever, with a wingspan of over 2.5 metres. It died out after moa became extinct.

Te Papa’s model makers couldn’t find a living bird with wing feathers big enough to make this life-sized model. Instead, they used about 130 feathers from the tails of female peacocks. They cut two feathers and joined them to look like one long feather.