Moa going extinct (jan 1, 1250 – jan 1, 1300)

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The moa are an extinct group of flightless birds which were native to New Zealand, and went extinct when Polynesians first arrived in New Zealand between 1250 and 1300 and made the bird their new source of food. The creature has frequently been mentioned as a potential candidate for revival by cloning, since it only died out a few hundred years ago and substantial quantities of moa remains exist. Scientists at Harvard University are now assembling a nearly complete genome of it, based on a toe bone found in a museum. They relied on its close relative the emu, and got around 85% of the genome and chromosomes in the right place.

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