Museums with Moa
- Te Papa (Museum of New Zealand)
- This
big, brand-new
museum has a feathered reconstruction of a medium-sized moa being attacked
by a (rather inaccurate) model of a Haast’s eagle. There are a
few bones on display, and a selection of other extinct birds. Te Papa
also has an excellent articulated skeleton of an Upland Moa (Megalapteryx
didinus).
- Canterbury
Museum
- To my mind,
the best feathered moa reconstruction is here, being hunted by early
Maori in a large diorama. There are also three articulated skeletons,
including Dinornis giganteus, as well as an articulated adzebill
and another giant eagle model.
- Auckland Museum
- After refurbishment,
the displays now have several specimens, including a D. giganteus.
- Whanganui Regional Museum
- I’m told there are a couple of skeletons and a diorama on display.
- Otago Museum
- A new gallery,
Southern People Southern Land, has much moa info, including about ten
articulated skeletons, some reconstructions, eggs, artifacts, and the
like. I hear they have a Harpagornis skeleton too, which would
probably be the only one on display anywhere in the world. Go Dunedin!
- Southland Museum
- In Invercargill. According to a photo I was sent, this striking pyramidal museum has a D. giganteus leg, some miscellaneous bones, and a small moa in a rather-too-upright posture.
- Rothschild Museum
- In the village of Tring, north of London, where the Natural History Museum’s bird collections are housed. This extensive collection of traditional stuffed and mounted animals had at least two moa, and, much less common, a mounted Elephant Bird. I’m told there’s a moa skeleton in the Natural History Museum in London too.
- Smithsonian Natural History Museum
- Their one moa is a Dinornis maximus (sic), in the Pleistocene
mammal hall. Lots of label mistakes: Maori arriving in 1350 and moa-hunters
in the 9th century, moas being knocked back by post-glacial climates,
and Maori “wore moa feathers ritually” (what's their source?).
While I was taking notes, three separate groups came by, said “Ostrich!”
and walked on.
Plus the NHM has
ripped Maori out of their exhibit halls to put in restroom access. Bad
show. - Other Museums
- Because numerous moa skeletons were exported from New Zealand in the 19th century, usually in exchange for European antiquities, there are moa all over the world. Usually these skeletons are composites of large South Island bones. My numerous spies (thanks, y’all!) tell me you can see them at the South Australian Museum, the Institut Royal des Sciences Naturelles de Belgique, the Senckenberg Museum of Natural History in Frankfurt, the Royal Museum of Scotland, the Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh, the Milwaukee Public Museum, the Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Conn., the Pratt Museum in Amherst, Mass., and the Field Museum in Chicago, but I haven’t seen them for myself. Well, one day...
I’m busy collecting information from other museums to add to this list. If your local museum has moa on display, let me know and I can add them.
