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Moa poo shows birds ate tiny herbs

Thursday, 15 January 2009

A study of fossilised moa droppings has found the giant birds had a surprising appetite for tiny herbs.
The findings, from preserved poop which lay in caves and rock shelters for thousands of years, have overturned notions that moa browsed only on trees and bushes.
"It shows they were grazers as well," said Otago University graduate Jamie Wood."
Another surprising discovery was that a currently threatened native herb, ceratocephala pungens,was once common.
"Some of these herbs were just two or three centimetres high, but you have these giant birds eating them. It's made us wonder if maybe the plant becoming endangered has something to do with the birds that were spreading its seeds becoming extinct.
"We found its seeds all over the place."
Wood, who next week starts work for Landcare Research, is studying moa droppings with Alan Cooper, director of the Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. .
They examined leaf fragments, plant seeds, and DNA from more than 1500 faecal fossils known as coprolites.