Gastornis

The heir of the dinosaurs?

Alongside Ambulocetus, the ancestor of whales, a relic from the Cretaceous lived in the primaeval forest of the Eocene: Gastornis, a flightless bird that was over two metres tall.

Gastornis is closely related to the goose birds and was widespread in Asia, Europe, and North America from the middle Paleocene to the middle Eocene, 62 to about 43 million years ago. The first fossils were found near Paris in 1855, and less than 20 years later, the first finds were made in North America.

For a long time, it was assumed that Gastornis was an agile, nimble predator that hunted smaller mammals. It was not until the 1970s that science began to correct the picture. New finds of foot bones indicated that Gastornis moved rather slowly, which is unusual for a carnivorous predator. Gastornis also had a powerful beak, but according to the latest research, it lacked the hooked end, typical of birds of prey. And its feet were not equipped with the claws that characterise birds of prey.

So today, it is assumed that the large, flightless bird Gastornis, long thought to be the most dangerous predator after the extinction of the dinosaurs, was in fact a herbivore.