Gastornis May Have Been Herbivorous

[DD1991]

An article you might find interesting.....

http://phys.org/news/2013-08-terror-bird-beak-worse.html

While Gastornis may be one of my favorite prehistoric flightless birds (Phorusrhacus is another famous 'terror bird'), I had never known anything about the diet of Gastornis, although the size and sharp beak has had the public thinking that Gastornis was a murderous bird. Last year however, a group of paleontologists found some Gastornis footprints in Oregon that, and so they proposed that Gastornis might have been herbivorous and not carnivorous. But the findings presented by Tutken and colleagues at the Goldschmidt conference provide the first concrete paleobiological evidence that Gastornis was a plant-eater.

[AgrilusHunter]

Thanks DD1991, that is an interesting article!

[Auspex]

I agree that it is likely that Gastornis (Diatryma is a junior synonym) was an herbivore. There have been purported gastroliths found in close association with indisputable Gastornis eggshell fragments, in non-reworked sediments. I have some of these, and after careful microscopic examination believe that they are, indeed, gastroliths (consistent pea-size, hard microcrystalline material, fine 'etched and buffed' patina, unlike any other pebbles at the site). No carnivorous bird today utilizes gastroliths, and I feel the sum of the circumstantial evidence supports the hypothesis of herbivory by Gastornis.

[Regg Cato]

Well now Walking With Prehistoric Beasts is inaccurate...

Makes sense though.

[Auspex]

It looks like only South America, before the Panama land bridge, produced giant, flightless, avian meat eaters; they did not long survive the faunal invasion from N. Am., where mammalian predators had every advantage. One of their "terror birds" Titanis walleri, made it into southern N. Am., but didn't last long.

[Regg Cato]

Isn't Titanis a junior synonym of Phorusrhacos?

[DD1991]

Isn't Titanis a junior synonym of Phorusrhacos?

Titanis is a phorusrhacid like Phorusrhacus, but it's a totally different animal than the latter because Titanis lived much later than Phorusrhacus. As all other phorusrhacids have been found in South America, the occurrence of Titanis in North America is a good example of how the Great American Interchange impacted the distribution of extinct bird clades endemic to South America (the discovery of a toxodont in Texas [Lundelius et. al. 2013] shows that the distribution of notoungulates outside South America as a result of the Great American Interchange extended a bit northward to the southern US).

E. Lundelius, et al. 2013. The first occurrence of a toxodont (Mammalia, Notoungulata) in the United States. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Vol 33, No 1, pp. 229–232 DOI:10.1080/02724634.2012.711405

[Regg Cato]

hm interesting...as you can probably tell my knowledge of "terror bird" taxonomy is a bit rudimentary lol