HOME |
RSS | 
The native Maori of New Zealand tell of a giant man-eating bird called Te Hokioi. Now scientists have identified a real bird that fits the description. Haast’s Eagle has been extinct for only 500 years, and may be the source of the Maori tales. The bird with up to a four meter wingspan was first discovered in 1870, but until recently was thought to be a scavenger. Recent scans show the bird to be strong enough to kill prey much larger than itself.
“It was certainly capable of swooping down and taking a child,” said Paul Scofield, the curator of vertebrate zoology at the Canterbury Museum.
“They had the ability to not only strike with their talons but to close the talons and put them through quite solid objects such as a pelvis. It was designed as a killing machine.”
Its main prey would have been moa, flightless birds which grew to as much as 250kg and 2.5 metres tall.
“In some fossil sites, moa bones have been found with signs of eagle predation,” Dr Scofield said.
Link -via the Presurfer
(image credit: John Megahan/PLoS Biology)
The Schweeb is an experimental transit system in New Zealand that combines the bicycle and a monorail track. Users lie down individual pods and work the pedals to move forward:
Our proposal to get you safely and quickly from one point in the city to another would be to elevate you onto a network of interconnected monorails where you never have to stop at traffic lights. The ideal vehicle for such a system already exists. Fully faired recumbent cycles, because of their low aerodynamic resistance, are breaking all bicycle speed records and currently reaching speeds of 90 kph (56 mph) in sprints. Suspending these comfortable and highly efficient machines from monorail tracks has the added advantage of taking away the rolling resistance of pneumatic tyres. Trains of Shweebs can further reduce the aero drag – ten people travelling at 40 kph will each have a lot less work to do than a single rider at the same speed. A single rider requires only a fraction of the energy to achieve the same speed as a normal cyclist – thanks to the significant reductions in both aero drag and tire friction. The vehicle is completely weatherproof, you can’t derail or fall out while on the cellphone or blackberry!
To remind drivers to drive carefully during the rain in Papakura, New Zealand, the local government put out a rather disturbing billboard that bleeds when it rains. The billboard may be terrifying, but apparently it’s effective: there hasn’t been a fatality since.
BuzzFeed has the video clip: Link [embedded YouTube]
Rugby players aren’t afraid of anything, including playing naked! A match in the nude over the weekend in Dunedin, New Zealand went off without a hitch, except for chilly weather and a streaker!
The nude rugby international, which started as a celebration of New Zealand’s national nude day, was held yesterday as a warm-up – although temperatures were reportedly cold enough to prove embarrassing – to the forthcoming match between the All Blacks and France.
Needless to say, there were plenty of tackles flying about with only one interruption … when a fully-clothed streaker ran on to the pitch.
(image credit: Stephen Jaquiery/Otago Images/Otago Daily Times)
Anthony Gardiner of Wellington, New Zealand bought an engagement ring for his girlfriend, but she turned him down. He can’t return the ring and doesn’t want to keep it as he considers it bad luck, so he’s staging a treasure hunt!
Anyone keen to pick up the ring, valued at NZ$5,000 ($3,268), will need to be in New Zealand’s capital city, Wellington, on Saturday to join the hunt, the Dominion Post newspaper reported.
Clues to the ring’s whereabouts will start being posted on social networking site Twitter (http:/twitter.com/donoogle_com) at 8 a.m. local time on Saturday (2000 GMT on Friday).
Link to story. Link to Twitter feed.
The Penguathlon is a sporting event for penguins at the Kelly Tarlton Arctic Encounter in Orakei, New Zealand. Penguins compete in five events: football, Frisbee, surfing, swing ball, and waddle races. This is no joke! New Zealand is home to nine of the 16 penguin species, and the colony at the Arctic Encounter has 80 King and Gentoo penguins in its colony. The sports are showcased as an enrichment exercise for the birds.
“New Zealand has the greatest diversity of penguin species and is arguably the best place in the world to see them. As well as being great fun, the Penguathlon gives people a fantastic chance to get up close with them as well as gaining a better understanding about their welfare”, said Gregg Anderson, Tourism New Zealand’s Regional Manager for UK and Europe.
The Penguathlon, which will run the rest of this month, may become an annual event. Link (with video) -via Arbroath
They’re screwed down though, which makes them safer but rather counterproductive.
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by ant8627.
From the Upcoming Queue, submitted by 
Photo: James Frankham / NY Times
I’ve always wanted to visit New Zealand ever since I saw The Lord of the Rings movies, and this feature at the New York Times by Robert D. Hershey Jr. just added a lot of fuel to my wanderlust fire:
IN 1908, The Spectator magazine called the 33.5-mile Milford Track through Fiordland National Park in New Zealand “the finest walk in the world,” an honorific still credible to knowledgeable hikers — one fan was Sir Edmund Hillary — a full century later.
The park, part of the Te Wahipounamu Unesco World Heritage Site, is of jaw-dropping beauty, a rare combination of rain forest, rushing rivers and glacially carved alpine heights that yields vistas that make you think you’ve stepped into a picture postcard. What’s more, novices as well as hardened trekkers can fully enjoy the delights of the Milford, which offers as much solitude as you could want and ambient water so pure you’re actually encouraged to drink whatever you can reach.
Wow. Just Wow. Has anyone ever been there? What’s your experience? Link
| FEATURED ITEMS FROM THE NEATOSHOP | |
 |
Mustache Bottle Opener |
 |
My Cryptozoological Family - Family Car Stickers |
 |
Zombie Hand Bottle Opener |
View more: New Items &
Best Sellers |
|
