MoaMoa (order Dinornithiformes) are an extinct group of flightless birds formerly endemic to New Zealand. During the Late Pleistocene-Holocene, there were nine species (in six genera). The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about while the smallest, the bush moa (Anomalopteryx didiformis), was around the size of a turkey. Estimates of the moa population when Polynesians settled New Zealand circa 1300 vary between 58,000 and approximately 2.
TinamouTinamous ('tɪnəmuːz) form an order of birds called Tinamiformes (ˌtɪnəməˈfɔrmi:z), comprising a single family called Tinamidae (təˈnæmədi:), divided into two distinct subfamilies, containing 46 species found in Mexico, Central America, and South America. The word "tinamou" comes from the Galibi term for these birds, tinamu. Tinamous have traditionally been regarded as the sister group of the flightless ratites, but recent work places them well within the ratite radiation, implying basal ratites could fly.
Kalahari DesertThe Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal desert, whose name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". Kalahari is derived from the Tswana word Kgala, meaning "the great thirst", or Kgalagadi, meaning "a waterless place"; the Kalahari has vast areas covered by red sand without any permanent surface water.
San peopleThe San peoples (also Saan), or Bushmen, are the members of the indigenous hunter-gatherer cultures of southern Africa, and the oldest surviving cultures of the region. Their ancestral territories span Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho and South Africa. They speak, or their ancestors spoke, languages of the Khoe, Tuu and Kxʼa language families, and are only a 'people' in contrast to pastoralists such as the Khoekhoe and descendants of more recent waves of immigration such as the Bantu, Europeans and Asians.
MioceneThe Miocene (ˈmaɪ.əsiːn,_-oʊ- ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words μείων (, "less") and καινός (, "new") and means "less recent" because it has 18% fewer modern marine invertebrates than the Pliocene has. The Miocene is preceded by the Oligocene and is followed by the Pliocene. As Earth went from the Oligocene through the Miocene and into the Pliocene, the climate slowly cooled towards a series of ice ages.
EggAn egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the animal hatches. Most arthropods, vertebrates (excluding live-bearing mammals), and mollusks lay eggs, although some, such as scorpions, do not. Reptile eggs, bird eggs, and monotreme eggs are laid out of water and are surrounded by a protective shell, either flexible or inflexible.
