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The Tufts Daily
Where you read it first | Thursday, March 28, 2024

The Weekly Chirp: Crazy extinct birds

henry

There’s no doubt that the avian biodiversity that exists today is absolutely breathtaking. From the sword-billed hummingbird in the Andes to harpy eagles in the Amazon and colonies of emperor penguins in Antarctica, the list of amazing birds truly never ends. If you think you’ve seen it all, check out the birds of paradise in Papua New Guinea -- they will change your life forever. All this magnificent diversity begs the question: What were birds like a century ago? Five centuries? Millennia? It’s a hard question to answer, but paleontologists and evolutionary biologists are putting together some pieces of the puzzle. And as it turns out, there were a fair number of awe-inspiring birds flying around the Earth before we ruined it. They were also enormous. Let’s take a look at some of them.

Pelagornis sandersi — the largest bird to have ever existed according to current knowledge. In ornithology, a “large” bird means they have a long wingspan, not that they weigh a lot. However, wingspan and weight tend to change together for obvious reasons. The largest bird alive today is the royal albatross, which has a wingspan of up to 11 feet. Pelagornis sandersi, on the other hand, had a wingspan of 20 to 24 feet, which makes the royal albatross look like a shrimp in comparison. It was so big that a backhoe had to excavate its fossil out of the ground. Like the royal albatross, Pelagornis sandersi was likely a pelagic bird, meaning it spent most of its life gliding over the sea and snapping up fish from the surface. It went extinct about three million years ago, and we don’t how it happened, but fortunately we can add this species to the very short list of species we did not drive to extinction!

Hieraaetus moorei — also known as Haast’s eagle, this New Zealand species was the largest raptor to have ever existed. Unfortunately, humans drove this powerful hunter to extinction back around 1400. I don’t know how they pulled that off, considering the fact that the Haast’s eagle weighed up to 35 pounds and had a wingspan of up to 10 feet. That might not sound impressive compared to Pelagornis sandersi, but that’s huge for an eagle. These guys hunted moas, which were enormous, flightless birds that weighed over 500 pounds and are also extinct due to humans. How’s that possible? Well, imagine a 35-pound raptor with two-inch, razor-sharp talons diving at you at over 50 miles per hour and then blasting you right in the head. That’s a force comparable to a cinder block falling on you from the top of a building twice the height of the SEC. New Zealand legend has it that Haast’s eagles were known to kill humans, but this was never confirmed.

To be honest, I’m rattled that we don’t get to experience these beautiful birds today due to the mistakes of our ancestors. Bird species extinctions have skyrocketed in the last century, and there’s no doubt we’re the culprits, either through hunting them or destroying the habitat they need to survive. Birds are cool; let’s make sure we keep them around for our grandchildren.

Love,

Henry