Anomalopteryx is an extinct bird genus known colloquially as the Lesser moa, Little bush moa. or Bush Moa. It stood more than 1.3 metres (4.3 ft) tall and weighed 30 kilograms (66.1 lb). It inhabited much of the North Island

North Island

The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...

 and small sections of the South Island

South Island

The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...

 of New Zealand

New Zealand

New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...

. Its habitat was lowland conifer, broad-leafed, and beech forests.

It is a ratite

Ratite

A ratite is any of a diverse group of large, flightless birds of Gondwanan origin, most of them now extinct. Unlike other flightless birds, the ratites have no keel on their sternum—hence the name from the Latin ratis...

 and a member of the order

Order (biology)

In scientific classification used in biology, the order is# a taxonomic rank used in the classification of organisms. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, family, genus, and species, with order fitting in between class and family...

 Struthioniformes. The Struthioniformes are flightless birds with a sternum

Sternum

The sternum or breastbone is a long flat bony plate shaped like a capital "T" located anteriorly to the heart in the center of the thorax...

 without a keel. They also have a distinctive palate

Palate

The palate is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but, in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separate. The palate is divided into two parts, the anterior...

.

The most complete remains, a partially articulated skeleton with substantial mummified tissue were discovered in 1980 in Echo Valley. It is now in the Southland Museum and Art Gallery

Southland museum and art gallery

The Southland Museum and Art Gallery is located in Gala Street, Invercargill, New Zealand. It is Southland's largest cultural and heritage institution, and contains a wide variety of the region's art, history and natural history collections.-Observatory:...

, in Invercargill, New Zealand. http://www.southlandmuseum.com/

External links

• Little Bush Moa. Anomalopteryx didiformis. by Paul Martinson. Artwork produced for the book Extinct Birds of New Zealand by Alan Tennyson, Te Papa Press, Wellington, 2006