This is Throwback Thursday #200. In these, we look back into the past at ESCONI specifically and Earth Science in general. If you have any contributions, (science, pictures, stories, etc ...), please sent them to [email protected]. Thanks!
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By John.Conway - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2042078
Terror Birds, phorusrhacids, were large carnivorous flightless birds, that lived until a few million years ago. They are famed for their large hooked beaks and a presumed taste for meat. For a long time, they were the largest predators in South America. Fossil evidence shows they later migrated to North America, with fossils from Texas dated at 5 million years ago.
This newspaper clipping from January 10th, 1941 from the Rutland Daily Herald (Rutland, Vermont), mentions Mesembriornis.
The reconstruction mentioned in the article appears to be the animal in this photo from the Field Museum Photo Archive on Tumblr. The photo is dated to 1940.
Fossil Friday. The Terror Bird were large carnivorous flightless birds, they were the largest species of apex predators in South America.
© The Field Museum, GEO79950.Front view of Mesembriornis skeleton.
8x10 cellulose acetate negative.10/21/1940
Mesembriornis was very similar to another Terror Bird named Andalgalornis ferox. A photo from 1948 of A. ferox showed up in a tweet by the Field Museum in 2022. Later, the photo showed up as an Instagram post from the Field Museum in 2023. This time it had a caption.
Terror birds, like this Andalgalornis ferox, were a group of large, flightless, predatory birds that dominated South America until 2 million years ago. These apex predators stood as high as 10 feet tall, had hatchet-like beaks, and outpaced modern-day horses. 🐎
Field taxidermist Leon Pray is putting the finishing touches on this menacing-looking model in 1948.
Here is a similar photo from the "Field Museum Photo Archives" on Tumblr.
Taxidermy Tuesday. Since everyone seemed to love the fossil of the Terror Bird, we thought we would show you one fleshed out by our taxidermist Leon Pray. Though it is not exactly taxidermy, models are often when either an animals skin is unusable or we don’t have a full specimen. That bird still looks angry.
© The Field Museum, Z84128.
Leon Pray, taxidermist, puts finishing touches on the life sized model or reconstruction of Fossil Bird, Phororhacus or Andalgalornis or Terror Bird. In Room 4083, 4th floor.
5x7 negative
4/20/1948
Still more about Terror Birds from the Field Museum...
Terror Birds #FieldMuseumQandA with Bill Simpson on Facebook
