If you tried to feed a cracker to this polly you might lose a hand in the process. Paleontologists say they’ve discovered the ancient fossil remains of the world’s only known giant parrot.
The bird stood roughly 3 feet high. And scientists speculate it could’ve weighed as much as 15 pounds and packed a powerful beak some four inches long. The discovery knocks New Zealand’s charismatic kākāpō off its perch as the heaviest known parrot.
“It’s something quite unique,” said Jamie Wood, an extinct-bird researcher at Manaaki Whenua Landcare Research in Christchurch, New Zealand, who was not involved in the study. “Every fossil parrot that’s been found so far is smaller than a kākāpō, yet this was twice the size.”
