Haast's eagle
Swoop like an eagle, eat like a vulture!
Haast's eagle was unlike any bird of prey living today. With a wingspan of up to three metres, it would have been a spectacular sight in New Zealand for hundreds of thousands of years.
According to UK's Natural History Museum, the world's largest-ever eagle acted like a vulture-raptor hybrid, taking down prey before eating its insides. Haast's eagle was a 15-kilogram bird of prey that lived in New Zealand until around 700 years ago and is believed to have preyed on the moa, an extinct group of birds that could measure up to four metres tall.
Scientists have discovered how this bird of prey dubbed 'the flying tiger' could take down one of the heaviest birds that ever lived. Haast's eagle used its huge talons to topple moa before delivering the killing blow with its beak and then eating its insides like a vulture.
Its extinction has certainly left a unique hole in New Zealand's - indeed the world's - biodiversity.
The bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) photograph in the top panel was taken by Gary Garner in 2011 near Dirty Devil River - a 130 kilometre long tributary of the Colorado River, located Utah, United States
Image adapted from © Katrina Kenny and © NHM
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