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A common theme in many dinosaur movies like Jurassic Park is theropod dinosaurs hunting down, killing and eating human beings. The common reaction to this theme is that, even though the movie is entertaining, there is no way that this ever happened as most people still incorrectly think that dinosaurs are extinct and that they became extinct tens of millions of years before even the earliest human ancestors evolved during the Pliocene. However, this isn’t exactly true. There was one theropod dinosaur that existed which did hunt down, kill and eat modern humans and this is it: The Haast’s Eagle; species name Harpagornis Moorei, arguably the most terrifying animal modern humans ever met.
The Haast’s Eagle was the most horrifying and vicious aerial predator that the Earth has ever seen. Rather than get into listing numeric dimensions for the size of the Haast’s Eagle, I will use an apt comparison which will illustrate the horrifying size of this dinosaur. A full-grown Haast’s Eagle was the size of hang glider and it weighed up to 36 pounds. Yes, I just typed that. By comparison, a full grown Golden Eagle maxes out at 20 pounds for the largest females. As the Haast’s Eagle went extinct before scientists could observe them, they are only known to science from subfossil and fossil skeletal remains, so there is nothing known of their life appearance. However, they were likely a brown color, or a combination of brown and white based on the most common coloration of living eagles though some reconstructions give them a much bolder and vibrant coloration, this is likely incorrect.
The Haast’s Eagle was native to New Zealand and its huge size was a result of its evolution to prey on a very specific group of animals: the Moa, nine species of very, very large herbivorous flightless birds that could weigh up to 510 pounds and could be up to 12 feet tall. All nine species of the Moa are also extinct. The Haast’s Eagle was one of the most specialized raptors known to science as it was evolved to survive solely on Moa as prey. While New Zealand maintained its isolation, this was fine for the Haast’s Eagle as it was the sole predator of Moa. However, around 1280, everything changed with the arrival of the first humans to colonize New Zealand, the Maori.
The Moa were very large and powerful avian dinosaurs in their own right, but they don’t appear to have been especially intelligent nor were they aggressive in defending themselves. They were ill-equipped to deal with the arrival of a new predator, and the Maori hunted them heavily. At first, not much changed for the Haast’s Eagle. Already superbly evolved to cripple and kill two-legged prey, the Haast’s Eagle started hunting the Maori and it was quite successful at it.
In traditional Maori mythology, there is a creature known as the Pouakai or the Old Glutton. This creature is described as swooping silently upon people, grabbing them and crushing them with its massive talons before carrying them off to feed itself and its ravenous young. It is now known that the Pouakai was actually the Haast’s Eagle and that these behaviors exhibited by the Pouakai actually happened. Haast’s Eagles absolutely killed and ate people, and they apparently did it frequently. By contrast, no modern raptors pose any threat to humans if humans treat them with respect and don’t threaten them.
Meeting your end by Haast’s Eagle was likely one of the most horrifying deaths imaginable. While there are many predators in nature that are capable of taking humans, most of them aren’t as intelligent or successful in their hunting attempts as birds of prey are. And Haast’s Eagles were definitely highly intelligent. Based on endocranial scans done on Haast's Eagle skulls, their brains grew right along with them. I hypothesize that they hunted in a similar way to a Golden Eagle, another large and very brainy raptor, using herding techniques and possibly using natural features, such as cliffs, to their advantage. And they were just as relentless as modern raptors are. Most other reptilian predators or mammalian predators will give up on a hunt after one or two attempts to take a prey animal but raptors are different. They are relentless and will make attempts to kill a prey item until they either succeed or the prey animal gets to a place where the raptor has no chance of success and it realizes it. This relentlessness is a part of the Pouakai myth as well, which tells us that this was a trait of Haast’s Eagles in life.
Now, imagine walking through the heavy forests of prehistoric New Zealand. You are gathering fruits or helping carry Moa meat back to your settlement. Then, without warning, a gigantic winged shadow falls over you. Knowing of the Pouakai since your childhood, you know what this means and that you have little hope, but you run anyway. The Haast’s Eagle observes your terror and uses it to its advantage, pushing you into running into a clearing rather than deeper into the forest. Once you are in the clearing, the Haast’s Eagle swoops down rapidly and sinks its eight 4.3-inch talons into your neck and shoulders, instantly shattering your shoulder blades, collarbones, neck vertebrae and likely many of your ribs. Death is quick, but extremely painful. The Haast’s Eagle then tears your body apart, consuming some of it there and flying off with other pieces to take back to its nest. That is the very last of you. If you were near a cliff, this monstrous aerial theropod would likely have grabbed you with one of its massive feet and dragged you off of the cliff, saving strength and effort.
This, to me, is what makes the Haast’s Eagle the most frightening predator humans have ever faced. It’s not just the size and the power. It’s the adaptability, intelligence and relentlessness. This is an animal that could take a great shot at out-thinking a terrified human and that would be evolved to use its prey’s terror reactions to its hunting advantage. A large crocodile, a large cat or a large canid are not capable of these behaviors to the same degree that raptors are. While they have their own levels of intelligence and are very good at many predatory behaviors, raptors have almost all other predators out-brained. Being on the wrong end of a Haast’s Eagle would be absolutely chilling.
However, the Maori would end up taking down the Haast’s Eagle, though they did so indirectly. Around the year 1400, the Maori hunted the last of the Moa to extinction. When this happened, the Haast’s Eagle had to solely survive on hunting humans. However, unlike most of its still extant generalist relatives which can switch prey items easily, the Haast’s Eagle was extremely specialized to survive only on Moa, which led to it having very specific nutritional requirements. When they were hunting humans and moa together, Haast’s Eagles could survive because they were still getting Moa meat in their diets. However, with no Moa, Haast’s Eagles quickly succumbed to malnutrition and this ultimately led to their demise shortly after the extinction of the Moa. It didn’t matter how many humans a Haast’s Eagle could eat, they would never get the nutrients they needed from humans. To put this into a human perspective, think of what would happen if you tried to survive by only eating candy bars. Before humans arrived in New Zealand, the only mammals were three species of bat, which the Haast’s Eagle never preyed upon. They simply were not equipped to survive by consuming mammals.
The next time you’re watching Jurassic Park or something in that vein, take a moment to think about and remember the one theropod dinosaur that actually made a meal out of us and that we killed off with our un-nutritious mammal bodies. It’s ok if you breathe a sigh of relief that it's extinct when you do think of it.