53 million years ago, a unique flightless bird, sporting an unusually large head, roamed the swampy Arctic regions, challenging our understanding of ancient avian species
Gastornis was also discovered in Wyoming but scientists confirm finding of fossils on Ellesmere island as bird thought to migrate during dark Arctic winters A giant, flightless bird with a head the size of a horse’s roamed the Arctic 53m years ago when the icy wilderness was more like a swamp , scientists have confirmed. A joint study by American and Chinese institutions found that the massive beast, known as Gastornis, existed on what is now known as Ellesmere island, found above the Arctic circle. It’s estimated the bird was 6ft tall and weighed several hundred pounds. The evidence for Gastornis’s presence in the Arctic comes from a single fossil toe bone, found by researchers in the 1970s. Scientists have now finally confirmed that the bone matches that of a fossilized Gastornis of similar age found in Wyoming. “I couldn’t tell the Wyoming specimens from the Ellesmere specimen, even though it was found roughly 4,000km (2,500 miles) to the north,” said Prof Th...