Moa is the Only Bird Without Wings

Posted by Alex in Animals & Pets, Daily Trivia on February 8, 2010 at 12:37 pm

The Moa was the only wingless bird that ever existed.

The moa were hunted to extinction by 1500 by the Maori in New Zealand. They were the only species of birds with no wings. But wait, you say, what about kiwis, emus, and ostriches? Well, these flightless birds, a group of birds called ratites, actually do have wings (some of them vestigials).

Oh, and one more thing. I mentioned New Zealand – have you ever asked yourself where is Old Zealand? New Zealand is actually named after Zeeland, a major seafaring province of the Netherlands, by Dutch navigator Abel Tasman in 1642 (yup, the island of Tasmania is named after him). Captain James Cook misspelled it New Zealand and the name stuck ever since.

 
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Police Tasered and Handcuffed … an Emu!

Posted by Alex in Animals & Pets on September 23, 2009 at 2:01 am

Forget tranquilizer darts – that’s the stuff of Hollywood. Real police officers use taser, even on a wayward emu:

Authorities in Mississippi said they had to handcuff an emu and shock it with a Taser to remove the ostrich-like flightless bird from a roadway.

Oh, and they used handcuffs, too. I’m assuming they meant emu legcuffs: Link (Sadly, no photo of the cuffed emu)

 
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