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.
BRANCH is an open-access publication 