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from the try-stuffing-that-into-the-oven dept.
This Was the World's Largest Bird. It Weighed as Much as a Dinosaur.
The world's largest bird — a newly identified species of elephant bird — weighed as much as a dinosaur when it strutted around Madagascar more than 1,000 years ago, a new study finds.
This monster bird is now extinct, but it weighed as much as 1,760 lbs. (800 kilograms), or about as much as seven modern ostriches when it was alive. It also stood a whopping as 9.8 feet (3 meters) high — a good 8 inches (20 centimeters) taller than an ostrich. And, also like the ostrich, this elephant bird couldn't fly.
[...] V. titan is so big, that its average weight of 1,430 lbs. (650 kg) is comparable to Europasaurus, a small sauropod (a long-necked dinosaur), which weighed about 1,500 lbs (690 kg), Hansford and study co-researcher Samuel Turvey, a professor at the Zoological Society of London's Institute of Zoology, wrote in the study.
When the herbivorous elephant birds went extinct about 1,000 years ago — largely because of human hunters — the Madagascar ecosystem changed. Plants that depended on the birds to eat and disperse seeds floundered.
Unexpected diversity within the extinct elephant birds (Aves: Aepyornithidae) and a new identity for the world's largest bird (open, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.181295) (DX)
(Score: 2) by RandomFactor on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:18AM
"Here kitty kitty kitty...."
В «Правде» нет известий, в «Известиях» нет правды
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:21AM
Fatal.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by richtopia on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:33AM (8 children)
When modern birds are dinosaurs, they inherently weigh as much as dinosaurs!
A better headline would be: Vorombe titan did not weight as much as an African elephant.
The best headline would be: Vorombe titan weighed the same as one VW Beetle. Because everything needs to be measured in Beetles, Football Fields, or Libraries of Congress.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday September 26 2018, @10:49AM
How long would it take V. Titan to eat the Library of Congress?
How many football fields would the resulting V. Titan poo cover?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:04AM (5 children)
Birds are not dinosaurs. They have descendent from dinosaurs, but they are not dinosaurs.
And not all dinosaurs had feathers. According to wikipedia (may not be right, but) T-REX and the like had plumulaceous feathers, a kind of proto feather, it did not look like a giant chicken with teeth.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:36PM (2 children)
The trex quacked like a duck: https://nerdist.com/dinosaurs-didnt-roar-they-cooed-or-quacked-like-ducks-says-new-study/ [nerdist.com]
Also, Id say any animal that cant fly isnt a real bird.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:18AM (1 child)
What??!! As a New Zealander you're slandering my national symbol.
Alright, it acts like a shrew or something, and almost doesn't even have wings, but come on! It kind of does have feathers. (Kind of).
That should count surely?
I am always interested in these types of birds, because New Zealand has no native land mammals at all, so birds evolved to fill the niches that mammals fill everywhere else.
Kiwis, as noted above are little insectivores living on the forest floor. The Moas were the equivalent of deer or cattle, and browsed the forests.
The apex predator was an Eagle with a 3 metre wingspan.
The rodent equivalent is a primitive grasshopper though. About the same size as a mouse, which is fun.
Unfortunately, about 600 years ago people arrived and bought dogs and rats. Between the three species, we've managed to wipe most of the birds out, which is a shame.
Carry on everyone, as I continue to mourn the Moa.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 27 2018, @09:04AM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by richtopia on Wednesday September 26 2018, @02:03PM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinosaur [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 27 2018, @08:45AM
Yes, humans are fish.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 4, Funny) by Rich on Wednesday September 26 2018, @07:13PM
But it certainly could carry less than an African swallow, in flight. And less than a European swallow, too. Besides, I miss the popular units for single and cubic dimensions, and electrical power consumption. Also, how many libraries of congress would you have to print out on A4 pages to get a stack of paper that reaches to the moon?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @11:55AM (6 children)
800kg ~=7850N
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:19PM (4 children)
A unit of mass, such as the kilogram, is also a unit of relative weight up to ratios [wikipedia.org]. In any given place, an 800 kg bird weighs the same as eighty 10 kg plates: 800 kg times local g. Under less gravity, they both weigh less, but they still both weigh the same.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @12:38PM (2 children)
What do you mean by "up to"? This is a strange phrasing.
(Score: 3, Touché) by RamiK on Wednesday September 26 2018, @03:48PM
🤦
compiling...
(Score: 2) by Pino P on Friday September 28 2018, @05:55AM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Up_to [wikipedia.org]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:50PM
Pedophile.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday September 27 2018, @08:57AM
And, Mr. pretent-smartypants who thinks he's thought of everything, you haven't - even when you're measuring the gravitational weight (wow - did you see how easy it was to neologise a term that disambiguates the concept?), you're not measuring its gravitational weight - you're measuring its gravitational weight minus its buoyancy. Pahhhh!
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 26 2018, @08:52PM (1 child)
Wait until the discover the fat-ass American version!
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday September 27 2018, @01:24AM
Here you go then. [wikipedia.org]
Maybe not bigger, and definitely extinct, but American, and scary as hell.