Important Moa Papers
Worthy, Trevor H. 1991. An overview of the taxonomy, fossil history, biology, and extinction of moas. Paper read at Acta XX Congressus Internationalis Ornithologici, at Wellington, New Zealand.
A good entry point to the literature, summarising numerous areas.
Cooper, Alan, Cécile Mourer-Chauvire, Geoffrey K. Chambers, Arndt von Haeseler, Allan C. Wilson, and Svante Pääbo. 1992. Independent origins of New Zealand moas and kiwis. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A. 89 (September 1992):8741-8744.
Lee, Krista, Julie Feinstein, and Joel Cracraft. 1997. The phylogeny of ratite birds: resolving conflicts between molecular and morphological data sets. In Avian Molecular Evolution and Systematics, edited by D. P. Mindell. San Diego: Academic Press.
The main papers in the recent ratite DNA controversy. Cooper et al maintain moa and kiwi are not closely related, and represent two successive colonisations of New Zealand. Cracraft and his colleagues use anatomical evidence to argue the traditional view.
Diamond, Jared M. 1990. Biological effects of ghosts. Nature 345 (28 June):769-770.
Cooper, Alan; Atkinson, I. A. E.; Lee, William G.; Worthy, T. H. 1993. Evolution of the moa and their effect on the New Zealand flora. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 8(12): 433-437.
McGlone, M. S., and B. D. Clarkson. 1993. Ghost stories: moa, plant defences and evolution in New Zealand. Tuatara 32:1-21.
Another debate has been over the effect moa had on the evolution of New Zealand plants; specifically divaricating plants (with interlaced, twiggly foliage) and trees that have different juvenile and adult leaves. Atkinson is pro-moa; McGlone anti. Tuatara, now defunct, was the journal of the Biological Sciences department of Victoria University, and may be hard to locate overseas. Mail me if you can't find it.
Cracraft, Joel. 1974. Phylogeny and evolution of the ratite birds. Ibis 116:494-521.
Cracraft, Joel. 1976. The species of moa (Aves: Dinornithidae). Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 27: 189-205
Millener, P. R. 1982. And then there were twelve: the taxonomic status of Anomalopteryx oweni (Aves; Dinornithidae). Notornis 29: 165-170.
Worthy, T. H. 1988a. A re-examination of the moa genus Megalapteryx in New Zealand. Notornis 35: 15-24.
Worthy, T. H. 1989. Validation of Pachyornis australis Oliver (Aves: Dinornithiformes), a medium-sized moa from the South Island, New Zealand. New Zealand Journal of Geology and Geophysics 32:255-266.
Bunce, Michael, Trevor H. Worthy, Tom Ford, Will Hoppitt,
Eske Willerslev, Alexei Drummond, and Alan C. Cooper. 2003. Extreme reversed
sexual size dimorphism in the extinct New Zealand moa Dinornis. Nature
425:172–175.
Huynen, Leon, Craig D. Millar, R. P. Scofield, and David
M. Lambert. 2003. Nuclear DNA sequences detect species limits in ancient
moa. Nature 175:175–178.
The chain of papers that whittled the species down to eleven, and the twin Nature papers that lumped the three Dinornis species into males and (bigger) females of Dinornis robustus (in the South Island) and D. novaezealandiae (North Island), making ten. All other recent references, even Worthy and Holdaway’s book, still talk about eleven species, so are out of date.
Worthy, T. H., A. R. Edwards, and P. R. Millener. 1991. The fossil record of moas (Aves: Dinornithiformes) older than the Otira (last) Glaciation. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand 21 (2):101-118.
Summarises our dismal fossil record. The oldest moa specimen listed is only about 2.4 million years old.
Worthy, T. H. 1988b. An illustrated key to the main leg bones of moas (Aves; Dinornithiformes). National Museum of New Zealand miscellaneous series 17: 37p
An excellent guide if you should happen to come across what you think are moa remains. I’m constructing a handy guide to what a moa bone looks like, and Trevor’s book, available from Te Papa Tongarewa, the Museum of New Zealand, is the next step.