3.5 meters tall! Paleontologists discovered the largest bird in the Northern Hemisphere!

In our impression, prehistoric giant birds are distributed on the southern landmasses split from the Gondwana continent , such as Africa, South America, Oceania, etc. The giant birds that once lived in the southern hemisphere include giant birds, elephant birds, moas, thunderbirds, and phobias . Giant terrestrial birds seem to have no connection with the northern hemisphere, but recently Russian paleontologists discovered a largest bird fossil on the Crimean Peninsula , proving that a giant bird up to 3.5 meters tall lived in Europe 2 million years ago .

Discovery on the Peninsula

The Crimean Peninsula is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Due to its important strategic location , it has been a battleground since ancient times . In March 2014, Crimea held a referendum to leave Ukraine and join the Russian Federation, which became one of the most important events of the year. The Prosecutor General Poklonskaya, who everyone has been thinking about , has now become the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Crimea, Russia.

In 2018, when a highway (Simferopol-Kerch highway) was under construction, the construction team entered Taurida and accidentally discovered a cave, which is the Taurida Cave . In the cave, people found a large number of ancient biological remains, one of which was full of hyena bones, so it was named Hyena Den .

Paleontologists from the Russian Academy of Sciences entered the Taurida Cave to collect and sort out the remains of ancient creatures. While cleaning the fossil bones in the hyena den, paleontologist Nikita Zelenkov found a unique bone, which belonged to the left femur of an unknown giant bird (number: PIN 5644/56).

The huge left femur fossil was studied by paleontologists, and a paper was published in the journal Vertebrate Paleontology on June 26 , 2019. The paper was titled “A giant early Pleistocene bird from eastern Europe: unexpected component of terrestrial faunas at the time of early Homo arrival.”

Paleontologists named this prehistoric giant bird ” Pachystruthio dmanisensis ,” but other paleontologists believe it is a synonym of the Dmanisi ostrich ( Struthio dmanisensis ), which comes from the Dmanisi Site in Georgia .

Giant European ostrich

The Dmanisi ostrich found in the Taurida Cave on the Crimean Peninsula was a very large land bird. According to the fossils, it could be up to 3.5 meters tall and weigh 450 kilograms , which is three times the size of the largest ostrich ! The largest male North African ostrich on Earth today weighs only 150 kilograms and is nearly 2.7 meters tall.

Since it is classified as an ostrich, the appearance of the Dmanisi ostrich should be very similar to the ostriches we see today, with a small head, big eyes, a slender neck, a sturdy body and two long legs. Compared with the strong hind limbs, the forelimbs of the Dmanisi ostrich have degenerated and lost the ability to fly, but they still have feathers. Like today’s ostriches, the Dmanisi ostrich has only two toes on its big feet and is very good at running.

The long and strong hind legs and two big toes give the Dmanisi ostrich super athletic ability. Given its size and weight, the Dmanisi ostrich is certainly slower than an ostrich, but it can still reach speeds of more than 50 kilometers per hour . The Dmanisi ostrich’s running ability is mainly to avoid the ferocious large carnivores around it.

Since the Dmanisi ostrich lives in the northern hemisphere where temperatures are lower, it should have feathers on its head and neck, and its body feathers should be taller than those of other ostriches.

From the Far South

The Dmanisi ostrich lived in the Pleistocene period between 1.5 and 2 million years ago , and its range was in the Black Sea region. The Dmanisi ostrich is not native to the Black Sea region, but actually came from the south , as far south as Africa, near the equator. Based on fossil discoveries, especially those at the Dmanisi site and the recent finds on the Crimean Peninsula, paleontologists have drawn a picture of the ostrich’s entry into Europe, with ostriches from Africa arriving around the Black Sea via Turkey and the Transcaucasus.

The discovery of the Dmanisi ostrich shows us evidence that the ostrich family radiated to the northern hemisphere during the Pleistocene . The reason why it was able to surpass its ancestors and evolve to such a large size may be related to the arid environment in Europe at that time. The Dmanisi ostrich’s large size and efficient metabolism allowed it to better utilize the low-nutrition food that was very easy to find in the open grasslands, which was an adaptation to the new environment.

Dmanisi ruins

The aforementioned Dmanisi site is located in southern Georgia , where scientists have discovered traces of ancient human activities since 1991. After excavation, a total of five primitive human skull fossils were found in the Dmanisi site , dating back 1.8 million years.

Research shows that the primitive humans found in the Demacia site are likely to be Homo erectus . They are also the earliest primitive human fossils found outside of Africa. The discovery of these fossils represents the earliest ancient humans to leave Africa. For Homo erectus 1.8 million years ago, Demacia in Georgia was the end of the world.

The Dmanisi primitive people were about 1.5 meters tall, weighed about 40 kilograms, and had a brain capacity of only one-third of that of modern people. Despite their primitive appearance, the Dmanisi people already knew how to use tools and collaborate in hunting. The large number of stones found in the site show that the Dmanisi primitive people were masters of throwing . They were able to pick up pebbles of appropriate sizes and use them as weapons to throw at prey or beasts.

Judging from the time and range of their survival, the Dmanisi primitive people lived with the giant Dmanisi ostrich. Although no direct evidence has been found that they hunted the Dmanisi ostrich, paleontologists believe that the Dmanisi ostrich may have been one of the prey of early ancient humans living in the Black Sea region, because humans once hunted elephant birds and moas in large numbers in Madagascar and New Zealand as their main food source.

Dmanisi ostrich

Regardless of whether the Dmanisi ostrich was the main prey of humans. Whether its extinction was directly related to human hunting, the discovery of this giant bird is of great significance. The Dmanisi ostrich shows us the migration path of giant terrestrial birds from the southern hemisphere to the northern hemisphere. That also makes us realize that such huge birds once lived in Europe during the Pleistocene.

The Dmanisi ostrich is a giant bird, reaching 3.5 meters in height and weighing about 450 kilograms. Despite this, the Dmanisi ostrich is not the largest bird that ever lived. The largest bird was the titan bird ( Vorombe titan ) that once lived on the island of Madagascar. Which could weigh up to 800 kilograms. The second largest bird was the elephant bird ( Aepyornis ), which weighed more than 500 kilograms. The Dmanisi ostrich is a strong contender for the third largest bird in the world!