Millions of years ago, Antarctica was home to several species of bony-toothed birds or pelagornithid. Researchers from the University of Berkeley and the Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered what may have been the largest bird species in history.
The findings have been recently published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports about a species that existed during the Eocene Epoch roughly 33 to 56 million years ago. The team was led by Peter Kloess, who found a few ancient avian fossils on Seymour Island in the Antarctic during the 1980s which belonged to the largest species of pelagornithid. Ancient flying birds compared in the study range from Antarctica to California.
Pat Holroyd from the UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology said that the bony-toothed remains are rare vertebrates compared to other ancient species. They easily stood out in the thousands of fossils kept at the museum.
The bird jaw discovered by Kloess was dated back to nearly 37 million years ago, notable for its spikey teeth. While still alive, the spikes were covered with keratin, a protein common in nails, horns, claws, and scales.
Bony-Toothed Birds All Over the World
Pelagornithid fossils in the museum have come from all over the world with the oldest at 56 million years old while the youngest was alive two million years ago. Those belonging to Antarctica had evidence as a dominant predator in the marine and coastal ecosystems wrote the authors.
The second fossil Kloess found on Seymour Island was a foot bone or tarsometatarsus belonging to another Antarctic pelagornithid species larger than the jaw bone. It was dated back to between 43 and 35 million years ago. The Eocene period was also a time that species were thriving after the mass extinction from an asteroid.
Ancient bony-toothed birds are compared to the size of today's albatross with but much larger wingspans nearly two times wider. Kloess said, "that giant pelagornithids appeared earlier than previously known and that Antarctica saw a range of pelagornithid sizes from the early to late Eocene." All sizes of the bony-toothed species were essential to the Antarctic ecosystems.
Fossils of the ancient species revealed their wingspan to be nearly 20 feet long, allowing them to fly at long distances. It may also be the reason why various species of bony-toothed birds were found all over the world. They also thrived with a diet that consisted of squid and fish.
Largest Ancient Bird Species?
At the time, Antarctica was much warmer than today's temperatures, explained Kloess. The land was also full of other ancient birds including penguins and falcons. The green land waws filled with pine trees, ferns, ancient marsupials, and frogs as well.
The team also determined that the ancient birds had a role in the ecosystem that modern albatrosses have today. While the pelagornithids were a dominant species, they still competed for foraging and nesting spaces with other soaring birds, noted by the authors. Holroyd shared that the team still wonders if there may be an even larger species since fossils of ancient birds are rarely discovered.
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