Emeidae
The lesser moa were a family in the moa order Dinornithiformes. About two-thirds of all moa species are in the lesser moa family. The moa were ratites from New Zealand: flightless birds with a sternum but without a keel. They also have a distinctive palate. The origin of the ratites is becoming clearer as it is now believed that early ancestors of these birds were able to fly and flew to the southern areas that they have been found in.
Ghedoghedo · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- DinornithiformesPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
Time the record covers
At most 2.6 million years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 2.58 Mya and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
66 occurrences of Emeidae on record, most of them in the Holocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
66 occurrences- Pleistocene36%
- Holocene64%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
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The named rock units Emeidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 59 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Emeidae and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Emeidae and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
170 taxa- Pachyornis elephantopus18 sites
- Gallirallus australis15 sites
- Emeus crassus14 sites
- Euryapteryx geranoides12 sites
- Chenonetta finschi11 sites
- Apteryx australis10 sites
- Cnemiornis calcitrans10 sites
- Anomalopteryx didiformis9 sites
- Coturnix novaezelandiae9 sites
- Cyanoramphus9 sites
- Fulica prisca9 sites
- Strigops habroptila9 sites
- Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae8 sites
- Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae8 sites
- Turnagra capensis8 sites
- Anas chlorotis7 sites
- Apteryx7 sites
- Aptornis defossor7 sites
- Corvus moriorum7 sites
- Harpagornis moorei7 sites
- Nestor meridionalis7 sites
- Callaeas cinereus6 sites
- Coenocorypha aucklandica6 sites
- Dinornis giganteus6 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 29 sites for Emeidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
6 references- Quaternary fossil fauna of South Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand28
- Quaternary fossil faunas from caves in Takaka Valley and on Takaka Hill, northwest Nelson, South Island, New Zealand15
- Late-Pleistocene avifaunas from Cape Wanbrow, Otago, South Island, New Zealand12
- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand8
- Late Quaternary terrestrial vertebrate coprolites from New Zealand2
- On the reliability of archaeological rat bone for hydrocarbon dating in New Zealand1
Each of the 66 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Emeidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Ghedoghedo
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Emeidae was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Lesser moa”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itDinornithiformes through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0.