Bird enthusiast will be disappointed to bonk they were born millions of eld too late . palaeontologist from Flinders University in Australia have discover five extinctmegapode birds — among them , a giant brush - turkey called Progura gallinacea . The big birdie was roughly the size of it of a kangaroo and weighed about eight kilograms yet it still pull off to fly .
After compare megapode fossils expose roughly a century ago with ones found late in the Thylacoleo Caves in Western Australia , the researchers close that the birds were five clear-cut coinage rather than the remains of some “ giant hereditary pigeon . ” The clappers date back to thePleistocene era , about 1.6 million and 10,000 days ago . The team ’s research was publishedtodayin the Royal Society Open Science .
Megapodes are incubator fowl indigenous to Oceania . Modern - daytime mound builder , like the malleefowl or brush turkey , lay to rest their egg in compost hill or underground . But their ancient relatives plausibly could n’t build mounds , since their feet were small and lacked the claws required to do this . or else , they probably just swallow up their eggs in dirt and call it a day .
“ give several of the turgid birds to have live in Australia in late times have miss detection in the fossil record until now , our research shows how trivial we cognise of Australia ’s contiguous pre - human avifauna , ” paleozoologist Trevor Worthy said in astatement . “ Probably many modest nonextant species also wait discovery by paleontologists . ”
Pour one out for the bounteous doll .
[ Royal Society Open Science ]
BirdsPaleontologyScience
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