Fossils Of Giant 50-Million-Year-Old Pelagornithid Bird Discovered In Antarctica

MessageToEagle.com – About 50 million years ago a giant bird known as Pelagornithid lived in Antarctica.

The Pelagornithid or bony-toothed bird had the largest wingspan ever recorded. The bird’s wings, fully extended, spanned more than 6.4 meters (21 feet). The shape of their wings allowed the birds to glide and cross large distances across the oceans

Now a group of scientists have found fossils of this giant prehistoric bird at an Argentine research base on the Antarctic island of Marambio.

“Almost three years ago, remains began to appear of what we believed could be this bird. Then we found a bone that confirmed that it was a pelagornithid,” an extinct family of enormous seabirds, said Carolina Acosta Hospitaleche, a researcher from the Natural History Museum in Argentina.

According to the researchers, bird was the largest pelagornithid specimen ever found.

Antarctica specialists say there were two kinds of pelagornithid on the continent, one that reached up to five meters tall, with a similar wingspan, and another that stood more than seven meters.

The birds likely developed to their monstrous size some 50 million years ago, when warming ocean temperatures would have given them an abundance of food to thrive, the researchers said.

“But the recently identified specimen would have been quite light despite its stature—30 to 35 kilograms (66 to 77 pounds),” said Marcos Cenizo, the director of the Natural Sciences Museum of La Pampa

See also:

Pelagornis Sandersi: World’s Largest Bird Had A Wingspan Of 24 Feet!

The Truth About Dodo – An Extinct Flightless Brainy Bird

Giant Flightless Bird With A Head Size Of A Horse’s Lived In The Arctic

Pelagornis Sandersi is the largest flying bird known to ever have lived. The fossil of Pelagornis Sandersi was unearthed in 1983 near Charleston, South Carolina. It was named Pelagornis Sandersi in honor of retired Charleston Museum curator Albert Sanders, who led the fossil’s excavation.

Pelagornis Sandersi lived all over the globe for tens of millions of years, but vanished just 3 million years ago, and paleontologists remain uncertain as to why, but the huge bird was present on every continent, including Antarctica.

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