Pteranodon-sized "dragon bird" found

Adam Khor

Its a new species of Pelagornis- a toothed sea bird with a 24 feet/7.3 meter wingspan.
They call it the largest flying bird ever, but Argentavis has been estimated to have a similar wingspan (unless I'm missing something). Still, very impressive animal

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/07/07/largest-ever-flying-bird-a-prehistoric-dragon-found-in-south-carolina

Rubecula

???The Pelagornis sandersi, which lived 25 to 28 million years ago, boasted a wingspan of 20 to 24 feet – twice as long as the biggest birds alive today, the California condor and Royal albatross, or roughly as long as a school bus packed full of small children.

Or even a school bus packed full of hungry cats? Or here is a thought ... how about as long as a school bus?

Sometimes a good article (like this) can be polluted with inane rubbish.

All the same I am glad you posted it Adam especially as it allows me to be a grumpy oul bugga again

Adam Khor

I know :B Not to mention that;

???The Pelagornis sandersi, which lived 25 to 28 million years ago, boasted a wingspan of 20 to 24 feet – twice as long as the biggest birds alive today, the California condor and Royal albatross

the Andean condor has a greater wingspan than the Californian condor... and the ostrich is the biggest bird alive...

, or roughly as long as a school bus packed full of small children.

Or even a school bus packed full of hungry cats? Or here is a thought ... how about as long as a school bus?

Sometimes a good article (like this) can be polluted with inane rubbish.

I prefer to look at the positive side; a bus packed with children is a good excuse to imagine the giant birds breaking the windows, mauling the driver and snatching the little brats away. On the other hand, if the bus was full of cats I would be sick worried about them

Galvasean

I'd say there'd be some peck off that beak! :eek:

Adam Khor

The giant petrel (scariest, most badass sea bird out there today) has a wingspan of just over 2 meters and no teeth:

You certainly don´t want to be attacked by a Pelagornis:

Rubecula

Slightly off topic in a way

Adam Khor

I think the pic he used for Teratornis is actually an Argentavis...

I would've mentioned Amplibuteo woodwardi- think Haast eagle sized, but probably with a larger wingspan since it lived in open spaces, and coexisted with humans in North America... kinda like a golden eagle on steroids, even if it was more closely related to certain hawks.

Rubecula

you may like a quick read of this:

http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2008/01/28/titan-hawks-super-raptors/

Adam Khor

I've read it before, what part do you mean?

Rubecula

This bit mostly but pretty much all of it is interesting....


Giant buteonines from Gargano

During the late Miocene or early Pliocene (this age depends on which source you consult), what is now the Gargano Peninsula on the Adriatic coast of southern Italy formed an island archipelago inhabited by numerous island-endemic tetrapods. Among these were exceptionally large dormice, hamsters and mice, the giant long-skulled Deinogalerix hedgehogs (there are five species, not just one as you might think from the popular literature), an otter, European pikas, and the multi-horned artiodactyl Hoplitomeryx.

Rarely mentioned, however, are the buteonine hawks Garganoaetus freudenthali and G. murivorus (Ballman 1973, 1976). G. freudenthali was about the size of a Golden eagle while G. murivorus was probably hawk-eagle sized. What might be two additional, buzzard-sized Garganoaetus species are also known. Several features distinguish Garganoaetus from other hawks and eagles, most notably its peculiar tarsometatarsus where the trochlea for digit 4 extended as far distally as the other trochleae. On the basis of various (other) tarsometatarsal characters, Garganoaetus was argued by Ballmann (1973) to be a buteonine: that is, a member of the accipitrid group that includes true buzzards (Buteo) and their close relatives (buzzard-eagles, crab-eater hawks, solitary eagles, Harris hawk Parabuteo unicinctus, Lizard buzzard Leucopternis schistacea and others). Buteonines are mostly New World raptors; they are good at soaring, have long, broad wings and tend to have short tails. A recent study supported their monophyly (Lerner & Mindell 2005).

Large barn owls were also present on Gargano: Tyto robusta was described by Ballman (1973) as similar in size to a Snowy owl Bubo scandiacus while T. gigantea was even larger than a Eurasian eagle owl B. bubo, making it the largest known barn owl of all time. Some internet sources say that T. gigantea was twice as big as B. bubo: so far as I can tell from Ballman (1973) – it’s in German – he only said that it was larger than B. bubo. There were also smaller barn owls (T. santicalbani), some additional owls which remain poorly known, a species of Palaeortyx (a pheasant also known from Miocene France), a pigeon, swift, and warbler (Ballmann 1973, 1976). The Gargano avian assemblage has more recently been studied by Pavia and G�hlich (2004). In addition to the taxa described by Ballmann, they also reported an ibis, a duck, a small raptor, rails, a new bustard, and shorebirds.

Adam Khor

There were also giant crowned eagles in Madagascar, giant golden eagles in Crete (and the mainland eagles were bigger during the Pleistocene too), and a giant eagle from Australia which I think is yet to be described, unless it was a giant version of the wedge-tailed eagle:

Galvasean

This thread is reminding me of something I wrote AGES ago...

*digs*

http://www.krank.ie/category/sci/nat/birds-that-could-totally-kill-you/

Rubecula

hmmmmmmm must be a lapse in my memory Thought things were a bit deja vue

Adam Khor

Galvasean wrote: »

This thread is reminding me of something I wrote AGES ago...

*digs*

http://www.krank.ie/category/sci/nat/birds-that-could-totally-kill-you/

You could easily write a new one with only living birds. Ostriches and emus have maimed people- I remember one case of an ostrich breaking a guy's back with one single kick (most attacks take place in farms actually).

Owls can be pretty dangerous too especially if defending their nests. Great horned owls are said to have killed people in North America. Famous British ornithologist Eric Hosking lost an eye to a tawny owl if I'm not mistaken.

And then there's this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-14118494

and this:

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/16/11225154-illinois-man-drowns-in-pond-following-swan-attack?lite

and this (from Birds of Prey of Southern Africa by Peter Steyn, 1982):

"One grisly item found on a nest in Zimbabwe by the famous wildlife artist D. M. Henry was part of the skull of a young African. That preying on young humans may very occasionally occur is borne out by a carefully authenticated incident in Zambia where an immature Crowned Eagle attacked a 20 kg seven- year old schoolboy as he went to school. It savagely clawed him on head, arms, and chest, but he grabbed it by the neck and was saved by a peasant woman with a hoe, who killed it, whereafter both eagle and boy were taken to a nearby mission hospital. The boy was nowhere near a nest, so the attack can only have been an attempt at predation."

and this:

The single confirmed case of an eagle flying with a human being involved the White-tailed Eagle. One June 5, 1932, Svanhild Hansen, a 4-year-old girl, was playing next to her parent's farm house in Norway when a White-tailed Eagle grabbed her by the back of her dress and flew with her to its eyrie. The eyrie was 800 m (2,600 ft) up the side of the nearby mountain and about 1.6 km (0.99 mi) away in flying distance. The eagle dropped the young girl onto a narrow ledge about 15.2 m (50 ft) below the nest. After being discovered by a quickly formed search party, the little girl survived with no major injuries, ultimately having kept her talon-pierced dress throughout her life.

Galvasean

Fear the swans! :eek:

Rubecula

Run for your life it is the ................. Budgies

Galvasean

So,I have assembled my thoughts on Pelagornis and its somewhat dubious claim to 'BIGGIST BURD EVAR!!!!" into a blog post:
http://www.krank.ie/category/sci/nat/was-pelagornis-the-largest-flying-bird/

Rubecula

Excellent Galvasean.

Whether or not Pelagornis sandersi was indeed the largest bird ever to take flight, we should probably still add it to the list of birds that could kill you.

People have in fact been killed by chickens (especially when a bone sticks in the throat )

Galvasean

So, when is Adam drawing a Pelagornis attacking a school bus full of frightened children?

Adam Khor

Galvasean wrote: »

So, when is Adam drawing a Prelagornis attacking a school bus full of frightened children?

Sadly I can´t draw buses

Capt'n Midnight

Galvasean wrote: »

Fear the swans! :eek: