[ad_1]
Scientists have identified the fossil of a giant bird that lived about 50 million years ago, with a wingspan of up to 21 feet that would make today’s largest bird, the wandering albatross, pale.
Fossils recovered from Antarctica in the 1980s represent the oldest giant members of an extinct group of birds that patrolled the southern oceans.
By comparison, today’s largest bird, the wandering albatross has a wingspan of 11 and a half feet.
Called Pelagornithids, the birds filled a niche very similar to that of today’s albatrosses and have traveled extensively in Earth’s oceans for at least 60 million years.
Read also: The 127-million-year-old bird fossil sheds light on the evolution of birds
Although a much smaller pelagornitid fossil dates back 62 million years, one of the fossils just described – a 50-million-year-old portion of a bird’s leg – shows that larger pelagornites arose soon after life rebounded from the mass extinction 65 million years ago, when the relatives of birds, the dinosaurs, became extinct.
This five-inch segment of fossilized jaw, discovered in Antarctica in the 1980s, dates back to 40 million years ago. The bird’s skull would have been about two feet long, while the pseudotes, which were originally covered with horny keratin, would have been up to an inch long. At this scale, the bird’s wingspan would have been 5-6 meters, or about 20 feet. | Photo Credits: UC Berkeley Image courtesy of Peter Kloess
A second pelagornitid fossil, part of a jawbone, dates back about 40 million years, according to the study published in the journal Scientific reports.
“Our fossil discovery, with its estimate of a wingspan of 5 to 6 meters – nearly 20 feet – shows that birds evolved to truly gigantic sizes relatively quickly after the extinction of the dinosaurs and have ruled the oceans for millions of years, “said Peter Kloess, a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley in the US
The last known pelagornith is 2.5 million years ago, a period of climate change when the Earth cooled and ice ages began, they said. Pelagornithidae are known as “bony-toothed” birds because of the bony, or upright, projections on their jaws that resemble pointed teeth, although they are not true teeth, like those of humans and other mammals.
The bony protrusions were covered in a horny material, keratin, which is like our nails, the researchers said. Called pseudotes, the struts helped birds catch squid and fish from the sea as they flew for perhaps weeks at a time over much of Earth’s oceans, they said.
Large flying animals have appeared on Earth periodically, starting with the pterosaurs that flapped their leathery wings during the dinosaur era and achieved a wingspan of 33 feet, according to the researchers.
Pelagornithids came to claim the Cenozoic wingspan record, after the mass extinction, and lived until about 2.5 million years ago. Around the same time, the now extinct teratorns ruled the skies, they said.
.
[ad_2]
Source link
