Uploaded October 2014 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
bit.ly/1L7AZ0P Animation of the skull of an adult female of the extinct South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus, FMNH PA 35), labeled to show the endocast of the brain cavity, labyrinth of the inner ear, confluent paranasal and paratympanic air sinuses, and other soft tissues. It was collected in 1949 in the Pyramid Valley swamp near Christchurch, New Zealand, for the Canterbury Museum, and is now housed in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Work on this project was done by WitmerLab PhD student Catherine Early. The bones of the braincase, mandible, and face were CT scanned at OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital, Athens, Ohio, at a slice thickness of 300 µm, and the quadrate bone was scanned at the OUµCT facility at a slice thickness of 45 µm. Segmentation of anatomical structures was done using Avizo; 3D PDFs were generated using Maya, Deep Exploration, and Adobe Acrobat; and movies were made using Avizo, Maya, QuickTime, and Adobe Premiere. Visit bit.ly/1L7AZ0P for 3D PDFs and more content on the Visible Interactive Moa. Visit our Facebook page for more content like this: facebook.com/witmerlab .
bit.ly/1L7AZ0P Animation of the skull of an adult female of the extinct South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus, FMNH PA 35), labeled to show the endocast of the brain cavity, labyrinth of the inner ear, confluent paranasal and paratympanic air sinuses, and other soft tissues. It was collected in 1949 in the Pyramid Valley swamp near Christchurch, New Zealand, for the Canterbury Museum, and is now housed in the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Work on this project was done by WitmerLab PhD student Catherine Early. The bones of the braincase, mandible, and face were CT scanned at OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital, Athens, Ohio, at a slice thickness of 300 µm, and the quadrate bone was scanned at the OUµCT facility at a slice thickness of 45 µm. Segmentation of anatomical structures was done using Avizo; 3D PDFs were generated using Maya, Deep Exploration, and Adobe Acrobat; and movies were made using Avizo, Maya, QuickTime, and Adobe Premiere. Visit bit.ly/1L7AZ0P for 3D PDFs and more content on the Visible Interactive Moa. Visit our Facebook page for more content like this: facebook.com/witmerlab .
