On 12 November 1839, Richard Owen announces to the Zoological Society of London that, from the evidence of only a small fragment of bone, a hitherto unknown giant flightless bird existed in New Zealand. Image: Plate XCVII of Owen and a Moa Skeleton, Richard Owen, Memoirs on the Extinct Wingless Birds of New Zealand, Vol. 2 (London: John van Voorst, 1879). This image is in the public domain in the United States because its copyright has expired.

Articles

Gowan Dawson, "On Richard Owen's Discovery, in 1839, of the Extinct New Zealand Moa from Just a Single Bone"