Giant Pleistocene bird from Crimea

[Kasia]

https://www.treehugger.com/animals/11-foot-tall-bird-discovered-crimea.html

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02724634.2019.1605521

 

[BLT]

That sure was one huge bird! 

[Kasia]

3 minutes ago, BLT said:

That sure was one huge bird! 

Indeed - now we know the ancestor of this one  

[BLT]

19 minutes ago, Kasia said:

Indeed - now we know the ancestor of this one

 

 

[Auspex]

Wow! Overlapping with the first hominid immigrants!
And they are just getting started on that cave system...

Thank you!

[JohnBrian]

450kg? Wow! Wouldn't want that thing perching on your shoulder!

[Ludwigia]

Very interesting! The only thing I missed is that the article makes no mention of or comparisons to the South American “Terror Birds”.

[siteseer]

56 minutes ago, Ludwigia said:

Very interesting! The only thing I missed is that the article makes no mention of or comparisons to the South American “Terror Birds”.

 

Hi Roger,

 

It does mention Titanis walleri once, which was the one species of "terror bird" to invade North America from the south during the Late Pliocene.  That Crimean bird was apparently three times the size of that.  Wow. 

 

I can tell you that Titanis remains are quite rare in the U.S. and known only along the Gulf Coast (Texas, Florida).  Some Florida collectors prize a toe bone of that above even Smilodon because of the rarity.  There's a toe bone on display at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

 

Jess

[Ludwigia]

On 29.6.2019 at 5:13 AM, siteseer said:

 

Hi Roger,

 

It does mention Titanis walleri once, which was the one species of "terror bird" to invade North America from the south during the Late Pliocene.  That Crimean bird was apparently three times the size of that.  Wow. 

 

I can tell you that Titanis remains are quite rare in the U.S. and known only along the Gulf Coast (Texas, Florida).  Some Florida collectors prize a toe bone of that above even Smilodon because of the rarity.  There's a toe bone on display at the Florida Museum of Natural History.

 

Jess

Yes, I did notice the mention of T.walleri, and thanks for the extra info about it, but I did mean the South American ones, some of which reached considerable size, although I don't think that any outdid that Crimean one.