Moa: The dramatic story of the discovery of a giant bird

by Richard Wolfe

In 1839, on the basis of a single mysterious fragment of bone from the other side of the world, the great English anatomist Richard Owen reached the conclusion that it came from an unknown gigantic flightless bird. Despite this being shortly before the time of Darwin and the great evolution debate, many initially thought Owen's claim preposterous. A huge new bird that couldn't fly? Like an Ostrich? Ridiculous! Owen's piece of bone is the starting point for Richard Wolfe's fascinating story of scientific intrigue and personality clashes in one of the nineteenth century's great natural history discoveries.

Genres: History, Natural History

250 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 2003

About the author

Richard Wolfe is a writer for adults and children, and a freelance curator of exhibitions. With his wife, artist Pamela Wolfe, he has published three picture books for children. He was a finalist in the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards in 1998 and 2000. Wolfe's books and articles for adults document aspects of New Zealand's art, history and popular culture.

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 2 out of 5]

By the end of the book, I was interested in the subject, but I gave it a poor rating because it didn't really seem like the jacket information lived up to my expectation.

I bought the book thinking it would be an interesting book about the Moa itself. Instead, the book is more about the English scientist Richard Owen, who helped to launch some of the natural history movement and museums in the UK and New Zealand. The moa was indeed a part of that, but it was more about Owen. Still an interesting book, but don't go into it mislead. Birders won't likely be as interested as history or scientists looking for history might be.

[Fatima · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNFing this. the beginning was kind of interesting but then i got so extremely bored with men fighting over who’s right, who’s wrong, and who found a bone first. I have to say tho, it was a good reminder that New Zealand formed as a British colony 👎🏼.

[Octavia Cade · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a well-researched - if slightly repetitive - account of the 19th century European discovery of the moa. It really is interesting to learn about how the bird was accepted and theorised about from a quite small scrap of bone... in that sense, it's something of a detective story. While I would have liked some more focus on the bird itself, the back cover makes it clear that it's about "scientific intrigue and personality clashes" so I don't really feel that I can use that as a point of complaint: the book does what it says on the tin.

It is rewarding as a historical study, and its focus an unusual approach to take regarding the discovery of the moa. That being said, the research can get bogged down a little: while much of this book is a fun, enjoyable read there are places where I do think it gets weighted down with minutiae and wanders a bit. Could have been a bit more concise, is what I'm trying to say.

[David R. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a disappointing account of the craze for bones of the extinct Moa as the English began serious settlement of New Zealand in the mid-19th Century. Therein lies much of the problem with the book. The bird was long gone, wiped out by the Maori peoples. And one can only breathe so much life into bone hunting. Wolfe really spends most of his time with the scholar Richard Owen who did much of the work popularizing the species and building the British Museum. But even that story line becomes plodding and repetitive. I'm fascinated with the subject, even in both cases (i.e. Owen and Moa) but this book didn't help me much.

[Pearl Yusuf · Rating 3 out of 5]

More on the back biting among 19th century natural history notables than on the actual bird. Some actual natural history would've balanced it out a bit more for me. The author jumps back and forth in time a bit too often for my taste and I had to keep referring back to previous chapters to remind myself of who the different players were.
Outside of some organizational issues and wanting a little more zoology, I appreciated the story and feel more enlightened on the subject.