The largest bird that ever walked on soil is a newly identified species of elephant bird. Researchers of a new study revealed that the creature weighed as much as a dinosaur when it walked around the island of Madagascar more than 1000 years ago.
Researchers said that the now extinct bird stood 3 meters tall,or 20 centimeters taller than the contemporary day ostrich when it was still alive.
Its weight, which can reach up to 800 kilograms, and is also equivalent to as much as seven ostriches and roughly a small long-necked sauropod called Europasaurus,which weighed about 690 kilograms.
Elephant birds are an extinct group of large flightless birds that lived in Madagascar during the Late Quaternary.
James Hansford, from the Zoological Society of London, and said that elephant birds are one of the most distinguished megafaunas in Madagascar’s evolutionary history because of their enormous impact on the ecosystem.
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Source: inquisitr.com