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Paleontologists have found and studied a fossilized foot bone of a froracid bird that lived 12 million years ago in South America. It is also called a "terrible bird", he writes Success in UA.
The weight of the froratsid could reach up to 70 kilograms, the height - up to three meters. These birds were mainly flightless carnivorous predators. The huge beak and mechanical adaptations of their skull testify to the latter.
They had slender bodies and unique locomotor devices for locomotion.
"The monstrous birds lived on the ground, had limbs adapted for running, and mostly ate other animals," said Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine researcher Dr. Siobhan Cook.
The size of the found bone of the bird causes scientists to think that it may be the largest representative of its species discovered today - about 5-20% larger than already known such birds, reports babel.
Traces of teeth were found on the fossilized bone, probably of Purussaurus, an extinct species of caiman, which is believed to have reached 9 meters in length.
"We suspect that the monstrous bird died from its injuries, given the size of crocodiles 12 million years ago," Dr Cook said.
The "terrible bird" also coexisted with primates, hoofed mammals, giant ground sloths and armadillo relatives, the car-sized glyptodonts.
"This is a different type of ecosystem than we see today or in other parts of the world before the confluence of South and North America," Dr Cook said.
