Pelagornis sandersi
Pelagornis sandersi | ||||||||||||
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skull |
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Temporal occurrence | ||||||||||||
Oligocene | ||||||||||||
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Systematics | ||||||||||||
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Scientific name | ||||||||||||
Pelagornis sandersi | ||||||||||||
Ksepka , 2010 |
Pelagornis sandersi is an extinct type of extremely large sea birds from the family of pelagornithidae (pseudo dental birds) that 25 million years ago the coasts of South Carolina inhabited. In Pelagornis sandersi and the similarly sized argentavis is the largest known flying bird species.
The circumference of the leg bones suggests a weight of 20, perhaps even up to 40 kilograms. Including feathers, the wing span is estimated to be between 6.0 m and 7.4 m. The physique is described as remarkably small in relation to the wings, the bone structure as particularly delicate. The body skeleton was very thin-walled, and the wing bones were also strongly flattened. The skull and beak together measure almost 60 cm. The beak was relatively mobile due to its special design. A strong joint at the base of the upper beak made it possible to fold it up. The jaw halves of the lower mandible were not fused together at the front, but rather connected by a flexible joint. The temporomandibular joint also made it possible to open the beak wide to catch prey and to stretch it laterally. Overall, this suggests a predatory way of life that was geared towards hunting large prey over the open sea. A specimen of an almost complete or well-preserved head is on display in the Charleston Museum .
Web links
- Daniel T. Ksepka, Michael Habib: The biggest birds of all time. In: Spektrum.de . July 21, 2016.
- Daniel Lingenhöhl: Pelagornis - the A380 among the birds In: Spektrum.de . July 8, 2014.
literature
- Daniel T. Ksepka: Flight performance of the largest volant bird . In: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . tape 111 , no. 29 , 2014, p. 10624-10629 , doi : 10.1073 / pnas.1320297111 , PMID 25002475 (free full text).