There are still a great deal of mysteries about the past and present of our wonderful planet. And perhaps for that reason, it always feels so exciting to learn about new information that scientists and archaeologists uncover.

A group of archaeologists discovered an incredible discovery thirty years ago while researching a cave network on Mount Owen in New Zealand. What they found was a wonderfully preserved claw that looked like it belonged to a dinosaur and still had flesh and muscles attached to it.

Here’s a photo capturing the famous claw

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Later it turned out that this mysterious leg was 3,300-year-old and it belonged to an extinct bird called moa which disappeared from the Earth approximately 700 to 800 years ago.

Here’s how this bird had probably looked like

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Turns out, moa first appeared around 8.5 million years ago! Apparently, back in the day, there were at least 10 species of moa. The two largest species reached about 12 feet (3.6 m) in height with neck outstretched and weighed about 510 lb (230 kg) while the smallest was around the size of a turkey.

Here’s a picture showing a size comparison between four moa species and a human

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

These now-extinct birds were flightless and lived in New Zealand

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

For a long time, scientists have been trying to find an answer to the question, why these birds went extinct. Here’s a thing—moa disappeared from our Earth around 700 years ago, shortly after humans arrived on the islands. Some scientists believe that it wasn’t a coincidence.

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

An evolutionary biologist Trevor Worthy suggests this: “The inescapable conclusion is these birds were not senescent, not in the old age of their lineage and about to exit from the world. Rather they were robust, healthy populations when humans encountered and terminated them.”

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons

Image credits: Wikimedia Commons