Gastornis, the giant flightless bird
A two-metre bird with a massive beak stalks the northern forests — and probably eats plants.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 12 million years
- Known to
- ± 1 million years
- Era
- Paleocene, Cenozoic
Gastornis stands up to two metres and carries a deep, powerful beak that led to a long career as the archetypal post-dinosaur terror bird, reconstructed tearing apart small horses. The evidence has turned: calcium isotopes in its bone chemistry match herbivores rather than carnivores, and the beak lacks the hook of a raptorial bird. It is now generally read as a large plant-eater cracking hard seeds and nuts. The genuinely predatory giant flightless birds, the phorusrhacids, arise separately in isolated South America.