Peter Jackson Just Got an Ultra-Rare Extinct Moa Egg Back to New Zealand With the Help of De-Extinction Startup

As many as 2.5 million of New Zealand’s legendary, towering flightless birds—the now extinct moa—once roamed the south Pacific nation’s hundreds of islands before Polynesian hunters began arriving in 1300 CE, according to a recent assessment by wildlife ecologists. Today, (at best) only some three dozen eggs from this group of species have ever been found.

But now at least one more, extremely rare and nearly complete, moa egg has been recovered and repatriated to its ancestral homeland aided by one of the commonwealth nation’s most famous film directors: Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson. Working with the high-tech conservation startup Colossal Biosciences, Jackson has acquired an 8.75-inch (22.2-centimeter) tall, 6.75-inch (17.1-cm) diameter moa egg after it popped up during a public auction in Colorado last June.

Thanks to the filmmaker and the firm, the egg was presented to indigenous Ngāi Tahu leader and professor of history Te Maire Tau at the 11th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Palaeontology and Evolution (SAPE 2026) this Monday in Ōtautahi Christchurch. The egg, partially reassembled with many pieces left to reattach, will be entrusted to the Ngāi Tahu people through Tau, who also serves as a researcher of Māori history at the University of Canterbury on New Zealand’s South Island.

“After expert restoration, it will very likely become only the ninth known nearly intact moa egg—probably one of the five best-preserved examples,” Jackson explained in a statement.

“More importantly,” the filmmaker added, “working with Colossal, and under Ngāi Tahu’s guidance, we can return this culturally significant taonga to its rightful custodians, advance research into the Moa, and connect future generations with Aotearoa’s extraordinary cultural and natural history [Aotearoa is the Māori’s name for New Zealand].”

Back to the egg

According to Artemis Gallery, the Colorado-based fine arts dealer that put the moa egg up for auction in June, the remains of this extinct bird’s egg had been stashed away in a private collection for six decades, since its initial discovery in New Zealand in 1966. Colossal Biosciences noted in its announcement that the artifact might have emerged from “a human burial site dating to the Moa Hunter period” or as early as 1300 CE. Hundreds of egg shell pieces remain to be reattached to the many hundreds that have already been reassembled into the egg’s current condition.

Or, as the gallery put it: “If you love jigsaw puzzles and want to create an insanely desirable zoomorphic specimen, this is for you!”

Researchers with Colossal, however, in coordination with the Ngāi Tahu community, Canterbury Museum, and other local institutions, have slightly bigger plans for the specimen. Archaeologists and biologists have managed to extract ancient DNA from the fragmentary finds of moa eggs since at least 2010: a painstaking process that has allowed them to identify distinct lineages within the genus Euryapteryx, a smaller moa cousin to the 6-foot tall (1.8-meter) tall South Island giant moa (Dinornis robustus), and identify which eggs belong to moa species from genera Emeus, Dinornis, and others.

Colossal, of course, has garnered headlines (and a 2026 Gizmodo Science Fair award) for its efforts to recover, map, and preserve the genetic material of both extinct and endangered wildlife species with the hopes of accelerating conservation efforts worldwide. And the firm is in ongoing talks as to what future scientific research it may help conduct with this specimen, which could include non-destructive imaging, DNA sampling to identify the species, and isotopic analysis of its elemental makeup, which could nail down its precise geographic origin.

Colossal’s chief science officer Beth Shapiro emphasized that anything the company considers doing with this moa specimen will be closely coordinated with the approval of New Zealand’s indigenous communities. That includes Tau and his colleagues at the University of Canterbury’s Ngāi Tahu Research Centre.

“That is how we work across the whole moa program: in partnership with the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre and Canterbury Museum, ensuring that every result we generate is returned to New Zealand,” Shapiro said.