Giant bird eating grass

The ferocious form of giant birds makes them look like dangerous predators, but in fact this may be just herbivores.

According to Discovery, this terrifying prehistoric bird is called Gastornis . It has a sharp, large, sharp beak with a height of over 2m. This bird lived 40 to 55 million years ago in Europe.

Fossil giant bird species.(Photos: Wikipedia)

"These birds live in the period after the dinosaurs are extinct and the time when mammals are still in their early stages of development, are relatively small, so these giant birds are thought to be predators. the most dangerous at that time, " said Thomas Tutken, a researcher from the University of Bonn, Germany, who led the study.

Evidence of defense of Tutken's point is the footprint of birds with the family Gastornis found in the United States. The footprints do not have sharp claws for the animal to hold and kill the prey. Besides, huge size and big beak is also a big obstacle for this bird to hunt successfully.

To verify the judgment, Tutken and his colleagues used geochemical methods. They analyzed the giant bird fossil bone that was kept at Martin-Luther University in Halle, and focused on the isotopic composition of calcium in the bone.

The analytical results show that the isotopic composition of calcium in the bones of fierce birds is similar to isotopes in dinosaur bones and other herbivorous mammals, and not in fossils of carnivorous species. .