A terror bird reaches Florida
One of South America's flightless predators crosses north and hunts on the Gulf coast.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2.4 million years
- Known to
- ± 500 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
Titanis walleri is the only phorusrhacid known from North America, standing perhaps 2.5 metres tall, and its remains from Florida and Texas show it crossed before or during the isthmus closure. It is one of the few South American lineages to establish itself in the north during the interchange, and it does not last long. Its wing bones are unusually reduced even for a terror bird, and an early claim that it had clawed grasping hands was based on misidentified material.