Researchers learn more about extinct 'terror bird'

LOS ANGELES - From the size and shape of the beak, researchers have always known that the massive South American "terror bird" was a predator. Now they know precisely how the bird killed - wielding its huge skull and hooked beak like a pickax and repeatedly chopping at prey until it succumbed.

The 5-foot-tall, 90-pound Andalgalornis steulleti, whose skull was nearly twice the size of a human's, went extinct millions of years ago, but Argentine and U.S. researchers have been using CT scans and biomechanical reconstructions to deduce how the flightless predators killed. Their findings were announced yesterday.

The new study "allows researchers to get down to the real nitty-gritty of the animal and be more specific about some of its behavior techniques," said vertebrate paleontologist Bob Chandler of the Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, Ga., who did not take part in the study.

Andalgalornis lived in northwestern Argentina about 6 million years ago. It was one of a family of at least 18 species known as phorusrhacids, but called "terror birds" because of their size and skull.

Vertebrate paleontologist Lawrence Witmer of the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine and colleagues from the Universidad Nacional de La Plata in Argentina used CT scans to study the interior of an Andalgalornis skull, and also measured the bite strength of an eagle and a red-winged seriema, a descendant of the phorusrhacids, for comparison. They published their results in the online journal PLoS One.

- Los Angeles Times