Ancient South American megabird had 6-metre wingspan

[Judi Lynn]

Ancient South American megabird had 6-metre wingspan
15 September 2010
Magazine issue 2778

http://www.newscientist.com.nyud.net:8090/data/images/ns/cms/mg20727784.800/mg20727784.800-1_300.jpg

IT WAS a bird that really lived up to its
dinosaur heritage.

For decades, fragmentary fossils had hinted that extinct birds once had wingspans of 6 metres, more than twice that of the wandering albatross, which now holds the record. Now we finally have proof for such giants: a 70 per cent complete skeleton of Pelagornis chilensis, a sea bird that lived 5 to 10 million years ago in Chile.

The bones suggest its wingspan was at least 5.2 metres, says David Rubilar of the National Museum of Natural History in Santiago, Chile, who led the analysis of the fossil. The work will appear in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

The bird had thin-walled bones, and previous fossils had been crushed, making it hard to determine their original size. The new fossil is intact, says Rubilar, and shows that estimates of pelagornithid wingspans beyond 6 metres were too high.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20727784.800-ancient-south-american-megabird-had-6metre-wingspan.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

[Orsino]

1. Polly wants your crackers, wallet and car keys.

This motherfucker must have had gun turrets and landing lights.

[Judi Lynn]

2. A Toothy Bird With a 17-Foot Wingspan Once Ruled the Air

A Toothy Bird With a 17-Foot Wingspan Once Ruled the Air
Here’s a new creature for the record books. In Chile, paleontologists have found the fossilized remains of a huge, toothy bird whose wingspan stretched 17 feet across. That means the bird, Pelagornis chilensis or “huge pseudoteeth,” had the longest wingspan ever recorded–a wingspan that was about as long as a giraffe is high.

This newly named species belongs to a group known as pelagornithids, birds that had bony tooth-like projections and long beaks. The well-preserved fossil that researchers turned up belonged to a bird that weighed about 64 pounds and had relatively light, thin-walled bones, according to the description published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. It cruised the skies between 5 and 10 million years ago.


More:
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/09/16/a-toothy-bird-with-a-17-foot-wingspan-once-ruled-the-air/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+DiscoverLivingWorld+%28Discover+Living+World%29