Prehistoric Life/Dinosaurs/Birds: Difference between revisions

{{tropeUseful Notes}}

These are the modern dinosaurs, and the most biomechanically efficient still-living vertebrates, able to fly at 120  mph and to go around the world with amazing ease. In short, the worthy dinosaur descendants. Here we'll talk about those which range from being slightly older than ''Archaeopteryx'' to nearly as young as modern day. On the other hand, we'll not talk about historically extinct birds such as the Dodo or the Elephant-Bird: they have nothing to do with only-prehistoric beasts, and they'll deserve a [[Useful Notes]] Page on their own.

* ''[[Confucius|Confuciusornis]]ornis'' lived in Early Cretaceous and was from the same famous Chinese Liaoning site in which the popular feathered dinosaur fossils come from. This animal had some evolved traits, for example had already lost its teeth (convergently from modern birds) and shortened its tail, but still retained an old legacy: three-clawed wings. As is easy to think from a Liaoning animal, the Confucius-bird has also preserved prints of feathers, which show two very elongated tail-feathers rather peacock-like. Another basal bird, ''Jeholornis'' from the same age and habitat, is also known as "Shenzhouraptor".

* ''Hesperornis'' and ''Ichthyornis'' are the two most famous Dinosaur Age-related birds (not counting ''Archaeopteryx''), both from Late Cretaceous North America. Since hespero is [[Rule of Cool|far cooler]], here we'll mention it first. ''Hesperornis'' lived in the same habitat in which Pteranodonts, Mosasaurs, Elasmosaurs and ''Archelon''s roamed: the shallow inland sea which used to cover US Midwest at that time, dividing North America in two parallel stripes of land running from Arctic down to the south. Despite its earliness, ''Hesperornis'' was already a ''very'' derived bird. 6  ft long (the size of a human), it was flightless, with vestigial wings, short splayed legs for swimming, a long neck, and a long beak [[Toothy Bird|with small true teeth]]. It spent most of its life in water, but returned on land to lay its eggs. Once, the hesperorn was shown as a sort of proto-penguin with an erect pose; we know now its legs were too weak to well-substain its body, and the animal is now portrayed more similar to modern [http://en.wikipedia/org/wiki/Grebe grebes]{{Dead link}} and [http://en.wikipedia/org/Loon loons]{{Dead link}}. We still don’t know if it had palmated feet like a loon, or lobed like a grebe.

* Neornithes (meaning new birds) or colloquially "Neorns", is the name indicating the last common ancestor of all modern birds and all its descendents. Neornithes were the ''only'' Cretaceous birds which managed to overcome the mass-extinction and to make their way in the Cenozoic, the Mammal Age. It's worth noting that their descendants, our modern birdies, have much, much more species today than mammals: thus, one can comfortably say dinosaurs ''still'' rule the world. Some ornithologists could even say "the Mammal Era" should be renamed "Bird Era" and considered a simple extension of the "Dinosaur Era"... But we humans will always be [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?|too proud to be mammals]] to accept this alternative view. Most Cenozoic "new birds" were very similar to their descendants: some were rather generic-looking, while others were more specialized, but still not too different to modern avians. Furthermore, their fossil record is ''extremely'' scant, maybe the scantiest of all Vertebrates; thus, evolution of the single modern-bird lineages is mostly unknown even today, and their phylogenetic tree is full of question marks. But don't worry...there were also many exceptions to this rule: we're going to talk about these.

* With Phorusrhacids (grassland-dwelling non-fliers), we have no doubts this time: thanks to their light weight and slender running legs, they ''were'' active hunter of small mammals. Not only that, with their strongly hooked, very eagle-like bill, they did not swallow their prey whole. It has recently been discovered they had even ''one clawed finger'' protruding from each of their tiny wings ,<ref>This is not so strange as one may think: there are also living birds with this feature, the most notable being the ''two-fingered'' young [[wikipedia:Hoatzin|Hoatzin]]</ref>, for uncertain purpose. Perhaps the most amazing-looking among all prehistoric birds, they have recently nicknamed [[Carnivore Confusion|terror-birds]] in pop- documentaries (for example, [[Walking with Dinosaurs|Prehistoric Park]].) Originary from South America, they have left a legacy in our modern world as well: the closely-related [[wikipedia:Seriema|Seriema]] is a medium-sized South American bird whose shape and habits resemble a miniaturized "terrorbird". Even though is also nicknamed "terrorbird" sometimes, ''Gastornis''/''Diatryma'' was not related to Phorusrhacids: it has left any descendant since 40 million years. The prototypical South American ''Phorusrhacos'' (often misspelled "Phororhacos") and the recently-discovered North American ''Titanis'' (first-originated in South America as well) are the two stock species of the family.

* Dromornithids were among the largest birds that ever lived (they varied in size from about as big as a cassowary to the largest and [[Trope Namer]] of the group, ''Dromornis stirtoni'', 3 meters tall and half a ton in weight); and yet, they've not gained much consideration in popular media, unlike their American contemporary counterparts, the phorusrhacids. It's probably because they likely weren't, fast, vicious killers. Instead, the [[Punny Name|'thunderbirds']], with their vast bulk, thick, robust bones, hoof-like toes and strong, crushing beaks were browsing and grazing herbivores, slowly plodding across a wetter, more wooded ancient Australian outback. Typical of Australian things, they've been given many nicknames: "thunderbirds" [[Captain Obvious|obviously]] refers to their huge bulk and robust bones; "demon ducks of [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|doom]]" refers to their closest living relative being the Australian magpie goose, and other waterfowl, and an old debate as to whether they were carnivores. A recent addition to the list is "Mihirung", from an Aboriginal story that might mention them as the "mihirung paringmal" or Giant Emu: it is a certainty that the first people to arrive in Australia encountered them, and [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|possibly drove them extinct]] (though the jury's still out on that score).

* We leave (almost) definitively the flighless bird's world and start to watch more traditional fliers. Among prehistoric flying birds, the most depicted ([[Rule of Cool|and most striking]]) are the Teratorns. They were very vulture-like animals, but were actually more related to storks than to bird-of-prey: just like modern [[Science Marches On|condors and North-american vultures]]. The namesake ''Teratornis'' is one of the most abundant birds in fossil record, and has been found in huge numbers in the famous Californian tar-pits in which mammalian sabretooths, giant wolves, mastodons and ground sloths have also been found. Arguably, they went to feed on the carcasses of these mammals, and remained stuck in tar just the same.

* The aforementioned ''Teratornis'' had an earlier relative, which lived in South America 8 million years before: ''Argentavis'' (its name means "argentinian bird"). Why should we mention it separately? Well... simply because, along with giant pterosaurs, it deserves the [[Giant Flyer]] title more than every other prehistoric creature. Its wingspan was 25 &nbsp;ft, ''as much as [[Stock Dinosaurs|Pteranodon]]''; its weight 80 &nbsp;kg, as much as the two-times-wider-winged ''[[Stock Dinosaurs|Quetzalcoatlus]]''. Imagine a giant condor with a ostrich-sized body, [[Arabian Nights|huge roc-like wings]], a sharp uncinated beak, and a love for carrion (and maybe even an occasional hunting attitude). With no doubt, the largest flying bird ever discovered. And yet, ''Argentavis'' has yet to appear in fiction. And **heck**, it has actually had one single apparition in documentaries to date: "Paleoworld", as a ''side-note'' of Phorusrhacids! Since [[Walking with Dinosaurs|Walking With Beasts]] producers did recreate ''Argentavis'' world (the Sabretooth episode)... they wasted a perfectly good opportunity.

Toothy seabird 3: ''[[wikipedia:Osteodontornis|Osteodontornis]]''

* However, ''Argentavis'' wasn't the only [[Giant Flyer]] in the Cenozoic: we have to add the Pelagorns. These were rather albatross-like or pelican-like marine birds, but they had two cool traits: their wingspan reached 20 &nbsp;ft (a bit less than ''Argentavis'') and their beak was ''toothed'', seemingly revealing the trope [[Toothy Bird]] being a [[Real Life]] thing in the past. Sadly, this is not true: these "teeth" weren't real teeth, but their bill had an ondulating, pseudo-toothed edge, just like one modern bird, the duck-like [[wikipedia:Merganser|Merganser]]. The only [[Real Life]] toothy-birds were those living alongside non-avian dinosaurs, such as ''Archaeopteryx'', ''Hesperornis'', and ''Ichthyornis'' (which weren't even typical "birds"). Pelagorns were the new feathered version of ''Pteranodon'', almost as large as it, and went extinct only 1 million years ago. ''Osteodontornis'' is the typical member of the group.

* When ''Hesperornis'' went eventually extinct at the end of the Mesozoic, a new kind of birds took soon its niche: but this time we're talking about much, ''much'' familiar-looking creatures: penguins. ''Giant'' penguins. The largest of them, ''Anthropornis'', was nearly as tall as a fully-grown human and weighed 200 &nbsp;kg, more than a modern ostrich; but it probably was as nice-looking as modern penguins are. Giant penguins swum in the southern seas for million years, until they were outcompeted 20 million years ago by a new group of large marine animals, their mammalian equivalents: seals and sea-lions.

[[Category:Prehistoric Life Birds]]