Flora Lichtmann: what you are hearing Scientific Americanof scientific, rapid, And I’m Flora Lichtmann.
I would like to take him birdwatching this week. But I’m not talking about a run-of-the-mill passerine peeping show. Flying songbirds.
[CLIP: North American Cardinal sound]
Lichtmann: This is a no-fly zone for hawks and birds of prey.
[CLIP: Red Shouldered Hawk sound]
Lichtmann: Waterfowl? Surrender.
[CLIP: Duck sound]
[Music]
The birds we are about to meet are unlike anything you have seen before.
Federico Desgrange: They used their beaks as axes to kill their prey.
Lichtmann: oh my god.
Daniel Kusepka: So imagine the biggest creature you’ve ever seen in flight.
James Hansford: they are huge. About 1900 lbs.
Alicia Greeley: The egg was about 150 times the size of a chicken egg.
Ksepka: So maybe we’re talking as if the wings were about 2 feet. So it’s a big feather.
Anusuya Chinsamy Sister: Most people think of ostriches and think that’s a big deal. But in fact they were once real giants.
Lichtmann: We are talking about a bird that weighs as much as a sports car, that was the premier predator of its time that roamed the jungle and devoured animals the size of a foal, that could be mistaken for an airplane. It’s about a bird that big.
But these birds kind of fly under the paleontological radar, at least compared to many dinosaurs. These winged giants are full of mysteries, and scientists continue to study them every day.
In the next four episodes, scientific, rapid, I will introduce them. We are looking for the most extreme birds that have ever existed. Welcome to Part 1 of his four-part fascination with real big birds.
I would like you to meet one of our guides.
Ksepka: My name is Daniel Kusepka
Lichtmann: Dan is an avian paleontologist.
Ksepka: And I’m the science curator at the Bruce Museum.
Lichtmann: What is the relationship with extinct large birds?
Ksepka: I love them and they love me too.
[CLIP: Ocean shore sounds]
Lichtmann: Okay, I want you to close your eyes. Dan intends to set the stage for the first monster we meet.
Ksepka: Imagine you are standing in South Carolina 27 million years ago. you are looking out over the sea
[CLIP: Wind sound]
Ksepka: The waves are rough.
[CLIP: Wave sound]
Ksepka: And then just hang in the air, block out the sun’s rays… the biggest thing I’ve ever seen flying alive, like a double-winged albatross, with a wingspan of 20 feet. It will also be That’s great. It will fly over you. It’s probably like the moment of your lifetime, great to see it.
Lichtmann: This bird is called Pelagornis Sandersi. No common name.
Kusepka: Oh, I’m just calling Pelagornis. Don’t call me Bobby.
Lichtmann: Dunn was the first to give a scientific explanation for this fossil.And let’s see why he named it P. Sundersi straight away. The story begins with this fossil popping into his life.
Kusepka: Pelagornis It was purely a coincidence of luck and fortune.
Lichtmann: Dan didn’t find any fossils. It had been unearthed in South Carolina in the 1980s, long before Dunn saw it.
Kusepka: They were excavating at the Charleston airport and so on, and someone hit the bone with what looked like a digging tool. And they stopped working.
Lichtmann: And called backup. The late Al Saunders, a paleontologist at the local Charleston Museum.
Kusepka: And he came there with his team and they collected it. And, you know, it was the biggest flying bird ever, so I thought anyone who found this would stop and prioritize it.
Lichtmann: at least that’s what it is birds A paleontologist would have done it. But Al Saunders was more of a fan of fossil whales. So he took the fossil back to the museum and kept it safe.
Kusepka: Al kept it in this bottom drawer, like a museum cabinet.
Lichtmann: And it was left there for about 30 years. Then one day, Al told Dan about bones. And Dan didn’t expect much.
Kusepka: And yeah, when I went there, I didn’t expect to see the biggest bird ever in my drawer. A duck or something would have been nice.
[Music]
Lichtmann: Inside the drawer, covered in dust, was a 27-million-year-old fossil that looked nothing like anything Dan had ever seen.
Ksepka: I took out the wing bone, put it on the floor, lay down next to it and took a picture with my cell phone. This is because the wing bones were longer than the entire arm. One of three bones.
Lichtmann: Named by Dan Pelagornis Sandersi In honor of Al Saunders, the unknown guardian of this truly colossal find. Dan tried to understand everything he could about this bird. And he realized that the amazing thing about this bird wasn’t just its six-meter wingspan. This bird wasn’t just big. it was weird.
Kusepka: I couldn’t believe the skull. No matter how you look at it, it doesn’t look like a bird. It looks like a little crocodile.
Lichtmann: Its 1.5 foot long beak was filled with insects.
Kusepka: They have this, this denture.
Lichtmann: Not dentures. They are erroneous in that they are not made of dentin and enamel, the materials our teeth are made of. But they still have a bite.
Kusepka: They are actually bony protrusions. That is, they are small bone spikes, alternating in size. That is, small, medium, and large, in that order, and undulating in that pattern.
Lichtmann: And they were probably great for piercing and holding slippery things…
Kusepka: That is, something very easy to grasp, like a fish or squid.
Lichtmann: Besides the suspicious dentures, the bird’s shoulder bones were also strange. The bird’s shoulder blade was very small. And the shoulder joint and the bones connecting it had an unusual shape.
Kusepka: It doesn’t look like it can really rotate like a normal bird.
So this bird may not be able to lift its wings above the level of its back. That’s why they don’t flap their wings like seagulls. It doesn’t flap like a songbird.
Lichtmann: Imagine a cardinal getting off the ground and pushing his wings up and down quickly and hard. This giant creature is probably just letting the wind blow him away with his six-foot wings spread.
Ksepka: It looks like a giant kite. So perhaps a slightly clumsy start into the wind, or using the height difference to your advantage, lifted you into the air…
Lichtmann: And once the bird takes off, Dunn said, it can probably fly for long distances.
Kusepka: As you know, Pelagornis You can even cross the Atlantic, stopping in Africa or Europe and back as part of your seasonal migration.
Lichtmann: This species Pelagornis Sandersi Although found only in Charleston, its relatives, other birds in this false-toothed flock, appear everywhere.
Ksepka: they are everywhere in the world. We have found fossils in Antarctica, New Zealand, Washington, Oregon, Europe, Africa and South America. They are known literally on every continent.
[Music]
Lichtmann: Huge size and between teeth, Pelagornis It may be one of the strangest birds that have ever lived on Earth. And the thought that popped into my head was, “How did this bird come about?” Dunn suspects that the emergence of this group, the Pelagornithidae, may have something to do with the disappearance of other strange giant flying creatures.
Kusepka: For pelagornithines, this particular role would therefore be filled by Cretaceous flying reptiles. Among those species are Pelagornis, And they’ll go extinct in the same extinction event that wiped out the nonavian dinosaurs, allowing a new group to explore the role of presumably very large flying animals. And the pelagornithids are the first group to capture it.
Lichtmann: They pounced on an open niche market. And I’ve heard the same from many of the big bird researchers I spoke with for this series. It is said that these giant birds popped up on the scene because the mass extinction cleared the competition. That doesn’t just mean dinosaurs. Other reptiles and early birds also became extinct. As such, survivors now have access to previously inaccessible resources and ecosystems.
I’ve heard a lot about radiation in mammals over the last few years. Mammals had their heyday when the dinosaurs went extinct. However, in the world after the birth of dinosaurs, birds also spread their wings and speciated.
Ksepka: In the first few million years after the mass extinction, a remarkable radiation of birds occurs. The ancestors of modern birds are therefore blessed with the opportunity to explore arboreal, predatory or aquatic habitats for the first time. And they get a little wild, really.
Lichtmann: Pelagornis is just the beginning. In the next few episodes, we plan to meet even more wild birds. After the dinosaurs went extinct, they resurrected like phoenixes and are unlike any other bird alive today.
Kusepka: Therefore, like the elephant bird, it may have been the largest bird that ever existed.
Alicia Greeley: Well, some might have reached up to 1000 kilos. This is tons. That’s why it’s called an elephant bird, right?
Lichtmann: We’ll explain that in the next episode of this four-part series. science fast Really fascinated by big birds.
Our show is produced by Jeff Dervicio, Turika Bose and Kelso Harper. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.
don’t forget to subscribe science fast Get podcasts anywhere. For more scientific news, visit ScientificAmerican.com.
for science fast–I’m Flora Lichtmann.
