More on the Haast Eagle

[sbisson]

Following up my recent entry on the extinct Haast Eagle, the largest predator in New Zealand, I noted this BBC News article, which discusses recent research into its DNA. It turns out that the Haast Eagle, one of the largest flying birds ever, was directly related to one of the world's smallest - a whole order of magnitude smaller...

Comments

[del-c.livejournal.com]

Size is one of the easiest things to change in evolution; animals are always trying to be bigger than their fellows anyway, so once the ecological restrictions are off.... Vooom!

(it works the other way around too, the dwarf elephants of the Mediterranean islands got small very quickly after the rising waters cut them off from their parent populations in Afro-Eurasia)