teratorns

Having mentioned teratorns, while they are now known from the Upper Oligocene/Lower Miocene of South America (Olson & Alvarenga 2002), and thus were contemporaneous with brontornithines, the immense teratorn Argentavis is only known from the Late Miocene, and brontornithines are unknown from this time.

Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006

Sure, they probably did scavenge (you can imagine them trying to scare teratorns, or a group of hyaena-like borhyeanids, away from a carcass), but they probably foraged for live prey of various kinds as well.

More on phorusrhacids: the biggest, the fastest, the mostest out-of-placest Darren Naish 2006

Having mentioned teratorns, while they are now known from the Upper Oligocene/Lower Miocene of South America (Olson & Alvarenga 2002), and thus were contemporaneous with brontornithines, the immense teratorn Argentavis is only known from the Late Miocene, and brontornithines are unknown from this time.

More on phorusrhacids: the biggest, the fastest, the mostest out-of-placest Darren Naish 2006

Fossil birds belonging to the same groups as extant species, surely, used their bills in the same manner as extant species, so dodos, teratorns and presbyornithids almost certainly found their bills to be as essential for preening as do modern pigeons, raptors and ducks.

Archive 2006-07-01 Darren Naish 2006

Fossil birds belonging to the same groups as extant species, surely, used their bills in the same manner as extant species, so dodos, teratorns and presbyornithids almost certainly found their bills to be as essential for preening as do modern pigeons, raptors and ducks.

The war on parasites: an oviraptorosaur’s eye view Darren Naish 2006

Sure, they probably did scavenge (you can imagine them trying to scare teratorns, or a group of hyaena-like borhyeanids, away from a carcass), but they probably foraged for live prey of various kinds as well.

Archive 2006-11-01 Darren Naish 2006

One thing I've always been curious about is what South America would have been like with both large flying predatory (?) teratorns and terror birds on the ground.

Terror birds Darren Naish 2006

Too much tendency to "see" only big exciting things that couldn't possibly still be around, like still extant teratorns, moa, plesiosaurs and the like.

Condors in Prehistoric California 2005

I'd think teratorns probably went in the first wave, as the bigger beasts passed into the maws of the Clovis bands-- the "Black Hole" theory of Pleistocene extinction.

Condors in Prehistoric California 2005

Incidentally, 20-something kg is far from the upper limit for flying birds given that the largest extinct teratorns exceeded 70 kg.

ScienceBlogs Channel : Life Science Darren Naish none@example.com 2010