When scientists unearthed large fossilised leg bones in New Zealand, they assumed they belonged to an ancient eagle. Ten years later, they realised they were wrong – these were the fossils of the largest parrot to ever walk the Earth.
Heracles inexpectatus (Hair-a-cleeze in-ex-pec-tay-tus) stood about a metre tall – as tall as a four-year-old child. This is more than twice the height of the kakapo, the world’s largest living parrot, which also comes from New Zealand. Like the kakapo, scientists think the massive Heracles was flightless. They have also suggested it may have eaten meat sometimes, but there’s no way to tell at this stage.
This is only one example of islands being home to animals either much bigger or much smaller than their mainland relatives. A couple of weeks after this announcement, a different group of scientists revealed their discovery of a massive extinct penguin that also lived in New Zealand. Who knows what other ancient island giants are waiting to be found?
This article was published in Issue 36 of Double Helix magazine (https://www.csiro.au/en/Education/Double-Helix). Copyright for this article is held by CSIRO.
Lachlan Writes Science 