Bullockornis (with human-size silhouette for comparison)
My sincere apologies for being such a truant blogger last week! Not only did I fail to post any new articles since Tuesday, I unpardonably left you stuck with nothing but the flimsy Ms. Perry during that time. In order to apologize, allow me to take you on a trip to the island continent of Australia…15 million years ago during the Middle Miocene. During this time one of the largest birds ever lived across Australia: a giant fowl named Bullockornis.
Bullockornis
Bullockornis was a 2.5 meter tall (8 foot 2 inch) gooselike bird. The creature weighed in at approximately 500 kilograms (1100 pounds) and scientists believe it was actually related to the modern geese and ducks. If you have ever met a modern goose, you will realize that a goose the size of a bear would be a formidable creature indeed. Additionally Bullockornis possessed a razor sharp beak with immensely powerful jaw muscles. It is hard not to imagine the giant bird nipping off a he-man’s arms like corn kernels or biting through bridge cables with this monstrous beak, but the truth is scientists don’t know what the bird used it for. The monstrous goose could have been a hunting carnivore (like certain ducks are today) or an herbivore which grazed on heavy dense plants. Perhaps, like contemporary geese, it was an omnivore which hunted, grazed, and opportunistically scavenged whatever it could get.
Bullockornis was discovered in 1979 but it only became well known when some PR savvy writer christened it the “Demon Duck of Doom” (which strike me as a silly 1930s Disney-style name, but I guess whatever gets people involved in paleontology is good). The scientific name “Bullockornis” means “bullock-bird” but, even though the bird was the size of an ox, it is actually named for Bullock Creek (a rich fossil location in the Northern Territory). Bullockornis was not the only giant of the Miocene in Australia. The Bullock Creek fossil beds also contained fossils of Giant horned tortoises, marsupial “lions” (i.e. thylacoleonids) and grazing Diprotodontids—giant wombats (although nothing so large as the mighty Diprotodon which evolved in the Pleistocene).
Fossil Bullockornis Skull
ferrebeekeeper 
6 comments
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May 16, 2013 at 10:10 AM
naturalpfg
Wow, that’s a big bird!
May 16, 2013 at 11:42 AM
Wayne
Indeed. Just imagine Tiny Tim’s face at Christmas dinner if Scrooge brought one of these from the butcher’s shop!
May 16, 2013 at 11:49 AM
naturalpfg
lol
May 25, 2013 at 1:00 PM
Wayne
massive lulz
May 18, 2013 at 7:38 AM
katesisco
While scientists pose birds after dinos, the long hot dry that preceded the dinos may have been when birds began. P Ward in his book Into Thin Air notes that air sacks began developing in bones as other researchers also do. The largest life on land was the Gorgon, and smaller animals may have been helped by the extremely strong dry winds that scoured the Earth.
May 25, 2013 at 12:59 PM
Wayne
Good comment! Protoavis, a mysterious archosaurian, dates back to the Triassic and is giving taxonomists (and ornithology-minded paleontologists) all sorts of qualms. I’m skeptical, but I’m suspending judgement till I hear more from the experts.