Paleontologists previously thought the big bird was a flightless species that had adapted to live in an isolated island ecosystem. But newly analyzed fossils—including wing bones—have changed the story
In ancient Flores, an island in eastern Indonesia, “hobbit”-size humans shared the landscape with an immense bird. At more than five feet tall, the Ice Age storkwho lived more than 60,000 years ago.
Paleontologists previously thought the big bird was a flightless species that had adapted to live in an isolated island ecosystem. But newly analyzed fossils including wing bones, presented today in the journal, have changed the story. Despite the stork’s size, its 12-foot wingspan likely would have allowed it to soar overhead.
This new realization prompted paleontologists to revise what they previously thought about the anatomy and behavior of. Rather than a hunter of small prey, the new study suggests the bird was probably a scavenger like other prehistoric, flying storks that are known to have relied on herbivore carcasses for their meals, just like the
of sub-Saharan Africa does today. The Flores stork’s preference for carcasses may even explain why the animal ultimately went extinct.an extinct close relative to elephants, which only grew to four feet tall at the shoulder. “The giant storks were reliant upon them for a large part of their diet,” says University of Bergen paleontologist Hanneke Meijer, lead author of the new study.
, for example, large species often become smaller to subsist on more limited resources, whereas animals that are often small—such as rodents and lizards—grow to unprecedented sizes., the Flores stork was thought to be part of this pattern. The bird was originally envisioned as a unique, flightless giant that had adapted to stalking smaller prey in the island’s forests.
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