Paleontologists have confidence unearthed and examined a fossilized leg bone of a phorusrhacid chook that lived 12 million years ago in South The united states.
A model of Paraphysornis at the Natural Historical previous Museum Vienna. Image credit rating: Armin Reindl / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Dismay birds are individuals of Phorusrhacidae, a household of immense, carnivorous, flightless birds within the uncover Cariamiformes.
These extinct birds had a with out a doubt immense physique mass, as much as 70 kg, and had been between 0.9-2 m (3-6.6 toes) in peak.
They had slender bodies and original locomotor variations for cursoriality.
Their gigantic beak and the mechanical variations of their skull recommend they had been atmosphere pleasant predators.
They inhabited South The united states throughout the Cenozoic, but they also are identified from the Plio-Pleistocene of North The united states and the Eocene of Africa.
Phorusrhacidae comprises practically 20 species in 14 genera and 5 subfamilies (Brontornithinae, Mesembriornithinae, Patagornithinae, Phorusrhacinae, and Psilopterinae).
Their closest residing relatives are believed to be seriemas, the sole residing individuals of the household Cariamidae.
“Dismay birds lived on the floor, had limbs tailored for running, and largely ate completely different animals,” talked about Dr. Siobhán Cooke, a researcher at the Johns Hopkins College School of Remedy.
The quit of a terror chook’s left tibiotarsus stumbled on in Tatacoa Barren region, Colombia. Image credit rating: Degrange et al., doi: 10.1002/spp2.1601.
The fossilized leg bone of a terror chook modified into stumbled on within the 2000s within the fossil-rich Tatacoa Barren region in Colombia.
The fossil dates relief to the Miocene epoch around 12 million years ago, and is believed to be the northernmost evidence of a terror chook in South The united states so a ways.
“The scale of the bone additionally means that this terror chook would possibly additionally very successfully be basically the most attention-grabbing identified member of the species diagnosed so a ways, approximately 5-20% greater than identified phorusrhacids,” Dr. Cooke talked about.
“Previously stumbled on fossils demonstrate that terror chook species ranged in size from 0.9 to 2.7 m (3-9 toes) huge.”
The fossil is additionally marked with probable teeth marks of Purussaurus, an extinct species of caiman that is believed to were as much as 9 m (30 toes) long.
“We suspect that the terror chook would have confidence died because its injuries given the size of crocodilians 12 million years ago,” Dr. Cooke talked about.
The phobia chook additionally co-existed with primates, hoofed mammals, huge floor sloths and armadillo relatives, glyptodonts, that had been the size of automobiles.
“It’s a special more or much less ecosystem than we watch at the present time or in completely different parts of the sector during a duration sooner than South and North The united states had been connected,” Dr. Cooke talked about.
The team’s paper will doubtless be printed within the journal Papers in Palaeontology.
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Federico Javier Degrange et al. 2024. A mammoth original terror chook (Cariamiformes, Phorusrhacidae) from Middle Miocene tropical environments of La Venta in northern South The united states. Papers in Palaeontology 10 (6): e1601; doi: 10.1002/spp2.1601
