A Leg Bone from a Brazilian Cave Rewrites the Final Chapter of the Terror Birds
- 演化之聲
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Terror birds, also known as phorusrhacids, were members of the avian family Phorusrhacidae. Their fossil record extends from the middle Eocene to the Late Pleistocene. They possessed powerful hindlimbs adapted for running, together with skulls and beaks capable of subduing and processing prey. Some species reached enormous sizes. Kelenken guillermoi, for example, occupied a high-level predatory position in terrestrial ecosystems. Terror birds, however, were not all towering giants. The family also included more gracile species weighing only a few kilograms. A fossilized leg bone from northeastern Brazil, once misidentified as belonging to a New World vulture, has now been shown to represent a previously unknown small-bodied terror bird.
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