Giant Bird Poo Recorded Prehistoric New Zealand

January 15, 2009

Over 1,500 big clumps of fossilized bird poo left behind by the extinct giant moa are providing scientists and historians with a record of what life was like in prehistoric New Zealand, according to a new study in Quaternary Science Reviews.

The job wasn't pretty, but a team of ancient DNA and paleontology researchers from the University of Adelaide, the University of Otago and the NZ Department of Conservation probed through the poo like beachcombers hunting for buried treasure.

And keep in mind that the giant moa was nearly 9 feet tall and weighed over 551 pounds. Its feces were just as enormous, with some individual coprolites measuring nearly 1/2 foot in length.

Giant Moa
(Credit: Istock Photography)

The scientists found the treasures they were looking for: plant seeds, leaf fragments and DNA from the dried dung to start building the first detailed picture of an ecosystem dominated by giant extinct species. But the discoveries weren't what the researchers entirely expected.

”Surprisingly for such large birds, over half the plants we detected in the feces were under 30 centimetres (11.8 inches) in height,” said co-author Jamie Wood of the University of Otago. “This suggests that some moa grazed on tiny herbs, in contrast to the current view of them as mainly shrub and tree browsers. We also found many plant species that are currently threatened or rare, suggesting that the extinction of the moa has impacted their ability to reproduce or disperse.”

“New Zealand offers a unique chance to reconstruct how a ‘megafaunal ecosystem’ functioned,” added Alan Cooper, Director of the Australian Center for Ancient DNA, which performed the DNA typing.

“You can’t do this elsewhere in the world because the giant species became extinct too long ago, so you don’t get such a diverse record of species and habitats. Critically, the interactions between animals and plants we see in the poo provides key information about the origins and background to our current environment, and predicting how it will respond to future climate change and extinctions.”

“When animals shelter in caves and rock shelters, they leave feces which can survive for thousands of years if dried out,” Cooper added. “Given the arid conditions, Australia should probably have similar deposits from the extinct giant marsupials."

"A key question for us is ‘where has all the Australian poo gone?’”

Comments

[Jamie]

How did you come across/finding the animals waste?

[Jennifer Viegas]

Hey Jamie,
Maybe you're the same Jamie, Jamie Wood, from the University of Otago? If not, then I can tell you that Dr. Wood found the dried feces (and a lot of it) while exploring remote areas of southern New Zealand. The stuff was buried beneath the floors of caves and rock shelters there.
Jen