The Maori tells stories of a monster named Poikai, a massive bird who like to turn people into meals.

Stories like this exist in many cultures, and usually we can comfort ourselves and say they're just stories.

But scientists are starting to think this specific story is true.

A fact of life, or a fact of a life once lived, known now only through the oral tradition.

And here's why. Here's why our skepticism has been eroded on this point.

We have fossil evidence from New Zealand, of an an eagle with a body the size of a pit bull

and wings large enough to envelop a king-sized bed.

Some rather sophisticated comparative analyses have determined that this bird was a predator,

not a vulture, but an animal that dive-bombed

massive prey. And given that we suspect this bird's natural prey included creatures far larger

than humans, 500-pound ground-dwelling birds known as Moas, for example, we have no reason to doubt the Maori's

stories, that a 150-pound primate like us might be included in their diet from time to time.

In fact, it would almost be demanding explanation if our children, human children, were not a food source for this winged monster.

Of course, if this dead species of eagle could produce stories, they would no doubt speak instead of the monstrous human.

The Maori wiped this bird out completely within 200 years.

They did this both by slaughtering the birds directly to turn their body parts into tools and by driving all their prey species to extinction. But this beast was, until their extinction,

the heaviest eagle on the planet. Today, we're going to talk about their successor, the Harpy Eagle.

Harpia, Harpia.

I'm Mackin. This is Species.

Welcome to the show. Today we are going to be speaking about a very big bird. This episode,

like every episode, doesn't have ads. And that's because, honestly, I think podcast ads are strange.

When you think about it, podcast ads, leverage your trust in a podcaster by paying that podcaster

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