'Terror Birds': Argentine fossil points to largest bird ever found

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'Terror Birds': Argentine fossil points to largest bird ever found

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From the Chicago Tribune, Illinois: "A curious teenager in Argentina has discovered the fossil skull of the biggest bird ever found - a swift, flightless predator 10 feet tall that pursued its prey across the steppes of Patagonia 15 million years ago, researchers at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County announced Wednesday.

The skull, tapering to a cruel beak curved like a brush hook, belongs to a previously unknown offshoot of extinct birds known as phorusrhacids - 'terror birds.'

Weighing perhaps 400 pounds, the bird most likely preyed on rodents the size of sheep that once grazed on the South American savanna.

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See the following 'Brief Communication' from the journal Nature "Palaeontology: Skull morphology of giant terror birds" (email if you have any problems) [Paleontology, Phorusrhacid]

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John Latter / Jorolat
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