Titanis is unique among phorusrhacids in that it is the only one known from North America, crossing over during the Great American Interchange. Or perhaps another predator even more terrible drove the birds to extinction.Titanis (from Greek for "titan") is a genus of phorusrhacid ("terror birds"), an extinct family of large, predatory birds, in the order Cariamiformes (an order including phorusrhacids and the extant seriemas) that inhabited the United States during the Pliocene and earliest Pleistocene. Flynn notes that climate change could have contributed to the birds' extinction. The terror birds died out about two million years ago, around the time that North and South America merged at the Isthmus of Panama. "They've got that same kind of meat-eater adaptation and they obviously did very well they persisted for tens of millions of years." "It's really interesting because they do resemble - at least in a crude way - the predatory dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus Rex that had gigantic heads, very small forelimbs and very long legs," he says. The many grazing animals of South America provided ample prey for the terror birds, who climbed to the top of the food chain.įlynn says they remind him of their very successful predecessors. Though other large predators existed at the time, none had the speed and agility that are suggested by the terror bird bones. "Most of the mammalian predators were a kind of dog and a lion-like marsupial." "There were very limited numbers of predators," Flynn says. American Museum of Natural History paleontologist John Flynn notes South America was an island at the time, where animals evolved differently. Instead, Chiappe's Nature article explains that the terror birds were probably greyhound-quick. "We are challenging the traditional view that these birds, as they grew bigger, they became less agile," he says. Scientists assumed that the large species of terror birds were bulky versions of other types of Phorusrhacid.Ĭhiappe says this skull, along with a slender leg-bone at the site, suggest something bigger - but also much different. The bones of large Phorusrhacids are very rare. Chiappe says there were many types of Phorusrhacids in South America after the dinosaurs became extinct. The bird is a member of the Phorusrhacid family. With the size of the skull, imagine the damage that skull could have done just by hitting something." "This was a warm-blooded, enormous very-active bird. "This is not like a crocodile," says Chiappe. He says this carnivorous bird was ferocious. Paleontologist Luis Chiappe identified the skull –- the largest on record -– in Argentina. It was the largest bird ever and the top predator in South America millions of years ago. Instead, it put its biological resources into growing bigger and faster than anything else on the continent. The bird didn't fly because it didn't have to. Scientists are calling the bird a "terror bird." Scientists have discovered a skull belonging to a hook-beaked bird that ruled the grasslands of South America. The "terror bird" stood over 10 feet tall.
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