Paleontologists have unearthed and tested a fossilized leg bone of a phorusrhacid chicken that lived 12 million years in the past in South The united states.
A type of Paraphysornis on the Herbal Historical past Museum Vienna. Symbol credit score: Armin Reindl / CC BY-SA 4.0.
Terror birds are participants of Phorusrhacidae, a circle of relatives of huge, carnivorous, flightless birds inside the order Cariamiformes.
Those extinct birds had an excessively huge frame mass, as much as 70 kg, and have been between 0.9-2 m (3-6.6 toes) in top.
That they had slim our bodies and distinctive locomotor variations for cursoriality.
Their immense beak and the mechanical variations in their cranium counsel they have been environment friendly predators.
They inhabited South The united states throughout the Cenozoic, however they’re additionally identified from the Plio-Pleistocene of North The united states and the Eocene of Africa.
Phorusrhacidae incorporates virtually 20 species in 14 genera and 5 subfamilies (Brontornithinae, Mesembriornithinae, Patagornithinae, Phorusrhacinae, and Psilopterinae).
Their closest residing relations are believed to be seriemas, the only residing family members Cariamidae.
“Terror birds lived at the floor, had limbs tailored for working, and most commonly ate different animals,” mentioned Dr. Siobhán Cooke, a researcher on the Johns Hopkins College Faculty of Medication.
The top of a fear chicken’s left tibiotarsus present in Tatacoa Desolate tract, Colombia. Symbol credit score: Degrange et al., doi: 10.1002/spp2.1601.
The fossilized leg bone of a fear chicken used to be discovered within the 2000s within the fossil-rich Tatacoa Desolate tract in Colombia.
The fossil dates again to the Miocene epoch round 12 million years in the past, and is assumed to be the northernmost proof of a fear chicken in South The united states so far.
“The dimensions of the bone additionally signifies that this terror chicken is also the most important identified member of the species recognized so far, roughly 5-20% greater than identified phorusrhacids,” Dr. Cooke mentioned.
“In the past found out fossils point out that terror chicken species ranged in measurement from 0.9 to two.7 m (3-9 toes) tall.”
The fossil may be marked with possible tooth marks of Purussaurus, an extinct species of caiman this is idea to were as much as 9 m (30 toes) lengthy.
“We suspect that the phobia chicken would have died because of its accidents given the scale of crocodilians 12 million years in the past,” Dr. Cooke mentioned.
The phobia chicken additionally co-existed with primates, hoofed mammals, massive floor sloths and armadillo relations, glyptodonts, that have been the scale of vehicles.
“It’s a special roughly ecosystem than we see nowadays or in different portions of the arena throughout a duration prior to South and North The united states have been hooked up,” Dr. Cooke mentioned.
The group’s paper might be printed within the magazine Papers in Palaeontology.
_____
Federico Javier Degrange et al. 2024. A big new terror chicken (Cariamiformes, Phorusrhacidae) from Heart Miocene tropical environments of Los angeles Venta in northern South The united states. Papers in Palaeontology 10 (6): e1601; doi: 10.1002/spp2.1601
