This is the largest bird in the world. It is as heavy as a dinosaur.

Artist's interpretation of birds and elephant chicks. A new study found that 1000 years ago, the world's largest bird-a newly discovered elephant bird-was as heavy as a dinosaur when it strolled in Madagascar.

This strange bird is extinct now, but its weight is as high as 1760 pounds (800 kilograms), or about 7 modern ostriches when they were alive. It is also 9.8 feet (3 meters) tall, 8 inches (20 centimeters) taller than an ostrich. Like an ostrich, this elephant bird can't fly. [kdspe] The researchers of "kdsps" (actually, 1800) began to collect the bones of elephant birds (15) in the mid-1980s, but they mistook the newly discovered giant for another elephant bird, Aepyornis maximus, "said James Hansford, the head of the research. Hansford of the Zoological Society of the Institute of Zoology in London told Life Science.

"/kloc-understanding the diversity of these extinct giant birds has been a taxonomic problem for 0/50 years." . 18th century and19th century, paleontologists were fascinated by the discovery of birds, and they began to name species left and right, usually starting with incomplete specimens.

To clarify this record, Hansford used a tape measure and calipers to analyze hundreds of elephant bird bones collected in museums around the world. Some bones have been broken, so he designed a computer program to fill the gap.

Researchers found the skeleton of Titan in Madagascar. (All rights reserved) After the Zoological Society of London drew the size of bones in a computer program, Hansford found that these bones were divided into different clusters, showing three genera (also known as genera) and four different species. He named the newly discovered bird Vorontbi Titan, whose common name means "big bird" in Malagasy. Its species name "Titan" is a backtrace of Aepyornis Titan, and a British paleontologist named C.W. Andrews mistakenly used it to call this bird. Later, it was wrongly classified as another elephant bird, A. maximus. As an interesting narrative, Andrews is a friend of British writer herbert george wells. He wrote a short story and joked that after naming these big birds ApsiyNysiMax and ApelyNythTIAN, "if they get more (bigger) apples. ...... "Some scientific expansion will rupture blood vessels." KDSPE"KDSPs "Fortunately, when Hansford discovered V, there was no blood vessel rupture. It is bigger than a big bird, and used to be considered as the largest bird in the world. In the past, some scientists thought that the fear bird was the largest bird ever recorded. It is another extinct flightless bird found in New Zealand today. Hansford said that now, with the discovery of V Titan, the record holder is very clear. )

It is a newly discovered elephant bird species Vorombe Titan, which is the largest bird ever recorded. Samuel Turvey, a professor at the Zoological Society of Hansford and London, wrote that the case (copyrighted by Heidi Ma v. Titan) was huge, with an average weight of 65,438+0,430 pounds (650 kilograms) and a weight of about 65,438+0,500 pounds with a small sauropod dinosaur (long neck dinosaur).

When the herbivorous elephant bird died out about 1000 years ago, Madagascar's ecosystem changed, largely because of human hunting. Plants that rely on birds to eat and spread seeds are facing a tough battle for survival.

"Elephant bird" undoubtedly had a great influence on the creation and maintenance of ancient Madagascar landscape. "Hansford said that their extinction left a loophole, and we need to consider protecting them without them.

The new discovery "may prove that this is the largest bird," said Daniel Sejpka, an expert on bird fossils and curator of the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut, who was not involved in the research.

Sejpka pointed out that even in a warm area like Madagascar, DNA degrades rapidly, and it would be interesting if researchers could extract DNA from elephant bones. This is because females are almost twice as big as males, so some specimens of these birds may only be males and females of the same species. However, the researchers write that this is unlikely because there are "complex variation patterns" between different bone clusters.

The study was published online today (September 26th) in the journal Open Science of the Royal Society.

Originally published in Life Science.