This Flesh-Eating 'Terror Bird' May Have Stood Over 3 Meters Tall
04 November 2024
ByTessa Koumoundouros
'Terror bird' (Titanis walleri) at Florida Museum of Natural History. (Amancer/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)
Though known only from a shinbone fragment, a newly-described flesh-eating terror just might be the largest known member of its feathered kind.
Phorusrhacid 'terror birds' stalked what's now Colombia's Tatacoa Desert around 12 million years ago, among car-sized armadillo relatives, giant sloths, and saber-toothed marsupial cousins.
The recently analyzed fossil suggests this specimen was far larger than its relatives, which have been estimated to range from 1 to 3 meters (3 and 9 feet) in height. It also bears signs of how this fearsome predator likely met its end – in the jaws of an even more terrifying beast.
Evolutionary biologist Federico Degrange from Argentina's Center for Research in Earth Sciences and colleagues found the bird's shinbone was marred with teeth marks of an ancient crocodile relative, Purussaurus, thought to grow up to 9 meters (30 feet) long.
Fearsome crocodile relative, Purussaurus. (Megaraptor-The-Allo/Wikipedia)
More:
https://www.sciencealert.com/this-flesh-eating-terror-bird-may-have-stood-over-3-meters-tall
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November 4, 2024
Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist
The 12-million-year-old fossil of an extinct, giant, carnivorous bird found in Colombia’s Tatacoa Desert could be the largest member of its kind. But it was probably killed by something much bigger.
Black and white illustration of terror bird
Life reconstruction of the terror bird Andalgalornis. Credit: John Conway via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
Ancient South America was home to a group of birds known as “terror birds”. These ferocious, feathered hunters belong to the phorusrhacid (FOR-us-RAH-kid) family. They ranged from 1–3m tall. The largest specimens grew up to 350kg – the size of a large Siberian tiger.
Ancestors of terror birds emerged in the Palaeocene period (66–56 million years ago) immediately after the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous, taking advantage of the lack of competition from their larger dinosaur cousins. The oldest terror bird fossils date to 43 million years ago.
Large predatory birds were also prominent in Europe, Australia, Africa and North America. South America’s terror birds were the apex predators on the isolated continent. But South America’s isolation ended about 3 million years ago. This saw the migration south of North America’s sabre-toothed cats.
There were mammalian predators prior to this, but none reached the size and power of the lion-sized Smilodon. The terror birds weren’t able to adapt fast enough to the new predators on the block. Their numbers dwindled and terror birds disappear from the fossil record about 100,000 years ago.
More:
https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/palaeontology/giant-terror-bird-fossil/
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