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BBC News: Ancient American bird was glider – BBC News article; How the dinosaur bird took to the skies – Daily Telegraph article; Secret of flight for world's largest bird revealed – COSMOS magazine article; Argentavis, the largest flying bird, was a master glider – Article from the blog Not Exactly Rocket Science
It is one of the largest flying birds known to have existed, only likely exceeded by measurement of wingspan by Pelagornis sandersi, discovered in 1983. [6] Fossil remains of this species have been dated to Late Miocene, about 6 to 8 million years ago, and one of the few teratorn finds in South America.
Kelenken guillermoi, from the Langhian stage of the Miocene epoch, some 15 million years ago, discovered in the Collón Curá Formation in Patagonia in 2006, represents the largest bird skull yet found. The fossil has been described as being a 71-centimetre (28 in), nearly intact skull.
Weight is the largest obstacle birds must overcome in order to fly. An animal can more easily attain flight by reducing its absolute weight. Birds evolved from other theropod dinosaurs that had already gone through a phase of size reduction during the Middle Jurassic, combined with rapid evolutionary changes. [3]
Pelagornis sandersi comparison with the Andean condor (Vultur gryphus) and the wandering albatross (Diomeda exulans). The sole specimen of P. sandersi has a wingspan estimated between approximately 6.06 and 7.38 m (19.9 and 24.2 ft), [9] giving it the largest wingspan of any flying bird yet discovered, twice that of the wandering albatross, which has the largest wingspan of any extant bird (up ...
The passenger pigeon was once among the most abundant wild bird species in the world, with a single flock numbering up to 2.2 billion birds. It was hunted close to extinction for food and sport in the late 19th century. The last individual, a mateless female named Martha after Martha Washington, died in the Cincinnati Zoo in 1914.
Houde demonstrated that the Lithornithiformes, a group of flying birds that were common in the Cenozoic of the Northern Hemisphere, were also paleognaths. He argues that the lithornithiform bird Paleotis , known from fossils in Denmark (Northern Hemisphere), shared unique anatomical features of the skull that make it a member of the same order ...
[2] [3] Gargantuavis is the largest known bird of the Mesozoic, a size ranging between the cassowary and the ostrich, and a mass of 141 kg (311 lb) like modern ostriches, exemplifying the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs wasn't a necessary condition for the emergence of giant terrestrial birds. [1]