[PaleoOrnithology • 2025] DNA and Spores from Coprolites reveal that Colourful Truffle-like Fungi endemic to New Zealand were consumed by extinct Moa Megalapteryx didinus (Dinornithiformes)

 

upland moa Megalapteryx didinus (Owen, 1883)

(c) Gallacea scleroderma*, 

(d) Gallacea sp. ‘Nelson Lakes’*, 

(e) Rossbeevera pachydermis*, 

(f) Russula macrocystidiata*,

in Boast, Wood, Cooper, Bolstridge, Perry et Wilmshurst, 2025. 

DOI: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0440  

 

Abstract

Mycovores (animals that consume fungi) are important for fungal spore dispersal, including ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi symbiotic with forest-forming trees. As such, fungi and their symbionts may be impacted by mycovore extinction. New Zealand (NZ) has a diversity of unusual, colourful, endemic sequestrate (truffle-like) fungi, most of which are ECM. As NZ lacks native land mammals (except bats), and sequestrate fungi are typically drab and mammal-dispersed, NZ’s sequestrate fungi are hypothesized to be adapted for bird dispersal. However, there is little direct evidence for this hypothesis, as 41% of NZ’s native land bird species became extinct since initial human settlement in the thirteenth century. Here, we report ancient DNA and spores from the inside of two coprolites of NZ’s extinct, endemic upland moa (Megalapteryx didinus) that reveal consumption and likely dispersal of ECM fungi, including at least one colourful sequestrate species. Contemporary data from NZ show that birds rarely consume fungi and that the introduced mammals preferentially consume exotic fungi. NZ’s endemic sequestrate fungi could therefore be dispersal limited compared with fungi that co-evolved with mammalian dispersers. NZ’s fungal communities may thus be undergoing a gradual species turnover following avian mycovore extinction and the establishment of mammalian mycovores, potentially affecting forest resilience and facilitating invasion by exotic tree taxa.

Keywords: evolutionary anachronism, moa, New Zealand, extinction, ancient DNA, mycophagy

(a) Upland moa skeleton, (b) HC coprolite X17/11/33,
and (c–h) examples of fungi identified from aDNA (* denotes taxa with congruent spore evidence):
(c) Gallacea scleroderma*, (d) Gallacea sp. ‘Nelson Lakes’*, 
(e) Rossbeevera pachydermis*, (f) Russula macrocystidiata*,
(g) Cortinarius sp. ‘Blyth Track’, (h) Cortinarius violaceovolvatus.

Photo credits: (a) Wikimedia Commons, (b) Alexander P. Boast, (c–h) Noah Siegel.

Alexander P. Boast, Jamie R. Wood, Jerry Cooper, Nic Bolstridge, George L. W. Perry and Janet M. Wilmshurst. 2025. DNA and Spores from Coprolites reveal that Colourful Truffle-like Fungi endemic to New Zealand were consumed by extinct Moa (Dinornithiformes). Biol. Lett. 2120; 240440. DOI: doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2024.0440  

[PaleoOrnithology • 2024] The Moa Footprints from the Pliocene – early Pleistocene of Kyeburn, Otago, New Zealand

 

An artist’s impression of the moa which created the Kyeburn footprints.

in Fleury, Burns, Richards, Norton, Read, Wesley, Fordyce et Wilcken, 2024. 

DOI: doi.org/10.1080/03036758.2023.2264789 

 Artwork by Paulina Barry.

 

ABSTRACT

In March, 2019, a trackway of seven footprints was found at a riverbank outcrop of Maniototo Conglomerate Formation in the Kyeburn River, Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand. In this study, we describe this first known occurrence of moa (Dinornithiformes) footprints to be found and recovered in Te Waipounamu/South Island. Footprints of the trackway were ∼46 mm deep, 272–300 mm wide and 260–294 mm in length. An associated separate footprint was 448 mm wide and 285 mm long. Cosmogenic nuclide dating of adjacent overlying beds from the same formation establishes a mean minimum age of burial age for the tracks of 3.57 Ma (+1.62/−1.18 Ma) with a mode of 2.9 Ma, which we interpret to be Late Pliocene, with a conservative age range of Pliocene to Early Pleistocene. The trackway maker is identified as a moa from the Emeidae family, probably from the genus Pachyornis, with a mean mass of 84.61 kg that was travelling at a speed of 2.61 kmh−1. The single adjacent footprint was made by an individual from the family Dinornithidae, most likely from the genus Dinornis with an estimated mass of 158 kg. These moa footprints represent the second earliest fossil record of moa.

KEYWORDS: Trackway, moa footprint‌, Dinornithiformes, cosmogenic nuclide dating, Pliocene‌, Maniototo Conglomerate

 

Kane Fleury, Emma Burns, Marcus D. Richards, Kevin Norton, Stephen Read, Rachel Wesley, R. Ewan Fordyce and Klaus Wilcken. 2024. The Moa Footprints from the Pliocene – early Pleistocene of Kyeburn, Otago, New Zealand. Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. 54(5); 620-642. DOI: doi.org/10.1080/03036758.2023.2264789 

Special issue: Fossil vertebrates from Southern Zealandia: taonga of international significance. Guest Editors: Carolina Loch, Daniel Thomas, Jeffrey Robinson

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