Recent findings reveal that a prehistoric hulking eagle, which is similar to the fictional giants from the famous Lord of the Rings (LOTR) franchise, used to soar over Australia. Though these creatures were not as big as the LOTR birds, these ancient eagles could have been big enough to prey on hobbit-sized creatures.
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Huge 'Lord of the Rings' Extinct Eagle
According to Live Science, the creature, called Dynatoaetus gaffae or Gaff's powerful eagle, was described based on a fossil collection spotted from 1959 to 2021 in a 17-meter-deep cave in South Australia. The fossils include legs, wings, talons, a skull, and a breastbone.
These remnants reveal that the bird could have had 12-inch talons and a 10-foot wingspan. These measurements make the creature the largest bird of prey in Australia's records. Findings were documented in the Journal of Ornithology.
Trevor Worthy, a co-author of the study and a vertebrate paleontologist from Flinders University, says that the bird was humongous. Worthy adds that the bird lived between 50,000 and 700,000 years ago and could have been the largest eagle on earth back then.
Despite how extraordinarily huge the D. gaffae was, its size was not even close to the giant LOTR eagles. As per Wiki Fandom, these fictional birds had a 75-foot wingspan.
However, this huge extinct eagle doubled the size of the wedge-tailed eagle in Australia. This wedge-tailed eagle is alive today and may have lived alongside the D. gaffae before the latter's extinction.
D. gaffae also shares a similar body shape with eagles from the Spilornis genus, which covers six species from Asia. The biggest one, the Pithecophaga jefferyl, or Philippine eagle, preys on bats, lemurs, monkeys, deer, and juvenile pigs. Both D. gaffae and P. jefferyi have strong and huge legs, considering their sizes. This enables them to attack and pick up huge prey.
According to the Australian Geographic, D. gaffae lived through prehistoric Australia with flightless birds and huge kangaroos. Possums and koalas could have dominated the treetops, and D. gaffae was big enough to snatch these prey.
The huge extinct eagle may have been one of the top predators in Australia during the Pelistocene era.
Only Two Known Species Are Bigger Than D. Gaffae
According to the Australian Geographic, there were only two bigger eagles that existed elsewhere. These were the Gigantohierax suarezi, which preyed on huge rodents in Cuba, and the Hieraaetus moorei, the giant Haasts eagle that preyed on huge moa across New Zealand.
Live Science notes that these two species had similar wingspans to D. gaffae. However, their wings may have been heavier.
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