The “giant goose” weighed about 230 kilograms, five times more than today’s large cassowary.
Researchers in Australia have discovered a skull they say belongs to that continent’s “giant and charismatic megafauna bird” that went extinct tens of thousands of years ago, comparing it to modern-day geese.
Scientists from Flinders University in Adelaide said the fossils were found in 2019 in the bed of Lake Callabonna in a remote region located about 600 kilometers north of Adelaide.
The skull allows scientists to show what the giant bird species Genyornis Newtoni looks like. It was found with almost completely preserved body fossils, which could confirm that it belonged to the species, the university said in a statement released on Tuesday.
Scientists believe that this bird, once widespread in the Australian wilderness, disappeared approximately 45,000 years ago.
The first specimen of this type of skull was discovered in 1913, but scientists at the time were unable to reconstruct it because it was badly damaged, lead scientist Phoebe McInerney and her colleagues wrote in an article published Monday in the journal Historical Biology.
The newly discovered skull allows researchers to deduce that it weighed about 230 kilograms, five times that of the Australian giant cassowary, a large bird related to the emu and ostrich that is also flightless.
According to the researchers, the skull of Genyornis Newtonia is “far from ordinary”.
It has a “tall and mobile upper jaw like a parrot, but the shape is more like that of a goose, then a broad beak, a strong bite and the ability to crush soft plants and fruit on the palate,” McInerney said.
Although it is difficult to trace the evolutionary origins of this megaspecies, the new skull has allowed scientists to conclude that it is essentially a “giant goose,” the scientist said.
Her team also found that the giant birds had “several unusual adaptations for aquatic habitats,” such as protecting their ears and throats from water entering when diving.
