Meet the ‘Giga-Goose,’ a 500-Pound Ice Age Fowl

An Ice Age chook that weighed twice as a lot as an ostrich was tailored for the water, say a group of researchers who lately studied fossils from creature, which went extinct about 45,000 years in the past. Primarily based on bones of Genyornis newtoni present in South Australia’s Lake Callabonna, the animal weighed about 500 kilos (230 kilograms), making it 5 occasions as heavy because the fearsome southern cassowary. The current trove of stays, together with a virtually foot-long cranium, was present in 2019.

The one different recognized cranium of Genyornis was present in 1913, and it was closely broken. 128 years later, the brand new fossils—and new expertise—allowed a analysis group to make extra detailed conclusions in regards to the life and occasions of this big chook. Their analysis is published right now in Historic Biology.

Lake Callabonna is “a little bit of a megafauna necropolis,” mentioned Jacob Blokland, a paleontologist at Flinders College and a co-author of the paper, in an electronic mail to Gizmodo. “This web site has been on file because the late 1800s, however has doubtless been a part of indigenous data for much far longer.”

“Presently Genyornis was considered a ‘struthious chook’, extra associated to cassowaries and emus, so subsequent reconstructions had been influenced by such,” Blokland added.

The group’s analysis has shaken up these conclusions. The chook’s higher jaw was tall like a parrot’s however formed like a goose’s (therefore its ‘giga-goose’ nickname, as dubbed in a Taylor & Francis release). It had a big braincase and a casque, an enlargement of the bone on the highest of its head. Although the animal was in comparison with massive birds as a result of its measurement, the current work finds the animal was morphologically much like trendy waterfowl just like the South American screamers.

“The brand new cranium materials for this Genyornis has revealed a goose-like invoice and several other specialist options of the cranium which can be associated to the chook submerging its cranium within the water. This chook should have foraged within the water at the very least a number of the time, maybe consuming gentle aquatic weeds or new plant shoots. It additionally has hindlimb diversifications for touring throughout onerous floor, and might need travelled from lake to lake, consuming fruits and the like alongside the best way.”

Genyornis went extinct about 45,000 years in the past, which means it shared Earth with anatomically trendy people and even Neanderthals (although the latter weren’t in Australia). There’s no archaeological or anthropological proof that people and Genyornis interacted, although they did inhabit the identical space on the identical time.

“We can not for sure say why Genyornis went extinct as a result of it’s doubtless a fancy interplay of a number of variables,” mentioned Phoebe McInerney, a paleontologist at Flinders College in a Australia and the examine’s lead creator, in an electronic mail to Gizmodo. “Nonetheless, with the cranium exhibiting these birds to have diversifications for being in and round water, this means that they lived and relied on semi-aquatic environments.”

“Throughout the time Genyornis was alive, the inland lakes of South Australia had been experiencing drought phases and had been slowly transitioning to the salty and dry state they’re in right now,” McInerney added. “This is able to have doubtless contributed to Genyornis turning into domestically extinct on this area.”

Whereas the reason for its disappearance stays unsure, the chook’s morphology and its ecological area of interest are actually a lot clearer. Extra fossils might proceed to develop paleontologists’ understanding of this gigantic goose-like forager.

Extra: Fossil Reveals ‘Wonderchicken,’ the Earliest Known Modern Bird