Towering more than ten feet tall and weighing in at about 1,000 pounds, big bird Pachystruthio was a big deal. The animal, which weighed about as much as a male polar bear, roamed the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. That’s thousands of miles — and across the equator — from the better-known avian giants.
The earliest members of the genus Homo outside of Africa may have hunted Pachystruthio. But it’s unclear whether they would have been successful. The researchers behind the find say, unlike Madagascar’s large but lumbering elephant birds, this big bird was fast.
The animal’s massive thighbone turned up in central Crimea’s Taurida Cave, a site discovered only last year during a road construction project. Initial excavations at the cave have revealed an entire ecosystem of ancient giant deer, bison, saber-toothed cats and several other animals.
Researchers calculated the animal’s size as comparable to that of the giant ...
