The giant mihirung Dromornis stirtoni. Credit: Peter Trusler
Phys.org has a story about a giant flghtless bird from Australia. The animal, Dromornis stirtoni, lived in Australia about 50,000 years ago. It stood about 3 meters high and had a weighed up to 600 kg. The description of this species was recently published in the journal Diversity.
The largest flightless bird ever to live weighed in up to 600kg and had a whopping head about half a meter long—but its brain was squeezed for space.
Dromornis stirtoni, the largest of the 'mihirungs' (an Aboriginal word for 'giant bird'), stood up to 3m and had a cranium wider and higher than it was long due to a powerful big beak, leading Australian paleontologists to look inside its brain space to see how it worked.
The new study, just published in the journal Diversity, examined the brains of the extinct giant mihirungs or dromornithid birds that were a distinctive part of the Australian fauna for many millions of years, before going extinct around 50,000 years ago.
"Together with their large, forward-facing eyes and very large bills, the shape of their brains and nerves suggested these birds likely had well-developed stereoscopic vision, or depth perception, and fed on a diet of soft leaves and fruit," says lead author Flinders University researcher Dr. Warren Handley.
"The shape of their brains and nerves have told us a lot about their sensory capabilities, and something about their possible lifestyle which enabled these remarkable birds to live in the forests around river channels and lakes across Australia for an extremely long time.
"It's exciting when we can apply modern imaging methods to reveal features of dromornithid morphology that were previously completely unknown," Dr. Handley says.
