The evidence was a single humerus, or upper wing bone, collected by the same paleontology team that found the Gastornis bone. Named Presbyornis, it was similar to birds in today's duck, goose and swan family but with long, flamingo-like legs. Originally thought to be a fearsome carnivore, recent research indicates Gastornis probably was a vegan, using its huge beak to tear at foliage, nuts, seeds and hard fruit.Ī second Ellesmere Island bird from the early Eocene also is described by Stidham and Eberle in the new paper. Today Ellesmere Island is one of the coldest, driest environments on Earth, where temperatures can drop to minus 40 degrees Fahrenheit in winter, said Eberle, also the curator of paleontology at the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History. Fossil evidence indicates the island, which is adjacent to Greenland, hosted turtles, alligators, primates, tapirs and even large hippo-like and rhino-like mammals. In addition to the Gastornis bone from Ellesmere, another scientist reported seeing a fossil footprint there, probably from a large flightless bird, although its specific location remains unknown, Eberle said.Ī paper by Stidham and Eberle appears in the most recent issue of Scientific Reports, an open access, weekly journal from the publishers of Nature.Ībout 53 three million years ago during the early Eocene Epoch, the environment of Ellesmere Island was probably similar to cypress swamps in the southeast U.S. "We knew there were a few bird fossils from up there, but we also knew they were extremely rare," said Eberle, an associate professor in geological sciences who conducts research on fossil mammals, reptiles and fishes. Gastornis fossils also have been found in Europe and Asia. But this is the first time the bone has been closely examined and described, he said. The Gastornis (formerly Diatryma) fossil from Ellesmere Island has been discussed by paleontologists since it was collected in the 1970s and appears on a few lists of the prehistoric fauna there, said Professor Thomas Stidham of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. The bone is nearly a dead ringer to fossil toe bones from the huge bird discovered in Wyoming and which date to roughly the same time.
The evidence is a single fossil toe bone of the 6-foot tall, several-hundred-pound bird from Ellesmere Island above the Arctic Circle. The confirmation comes from a new study by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the University of Colorado Boulder that describes the first and only fossil evidence from the Arctic of a massive bird known as Gastornis.
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