Gastornis

The Gastornis is a carnivorous prehistoric bird having lived at the end of the Paléocène and at the beginning of the Eocene , is between 56 and 41 My. It is the first large predator appeared after the disappearance of the dinosaurs.

Physical description

Gastornis belonged to the order of the gruiformes and the family of the gasthornithidés . Larger animal of its time, it weighed ½ ton and measured 2,1 meter in height. It had the short wings, of the legs long and massive and a large nozzle thick able to break bones, which made formidable a of it predatory. It was unable to fly and was to move the made-to-order of the ostriches and the nandous of today.

History

Gastornis , or bird of Gaston , owes his name with Gaston Planté, which discovered of them the first fossils with Geisaltal in Germany in 1855. It called it Diatryma , name which still some paleontologists gives him today. The first skeleton was entirely reconstituted in 1881. Thereafter, other fossils were discovered in France and Germany.

In 1876, Edward Drinker discovered the first fossils of Gastornis in the United States. The paleontologists thus located his geographical distribution on the continents European and North-American. Although having classified it in the order of the gruiformes, several of them believe that he is a close relation to the ansériformes, are ducks and geese. It would be even possible, according to them, that those go down from him.

Habitat and lifestyle

Gastornis lived in the forests and the marshes of the end of the Paléocène and the beginning of the Eocene , whereas the climate of planet was of tropical nature. It nourished small mammals of the time, kind Propalaeotherium or Leptictidium . It benefitted from the vegetation to put itself at the mounting and, when a prey passed to its range, it caught it with its nozzle. Then, it crushed it and shook it before eating it.

Certain paleontologists believe that Gastornis was omnivorous or even herbivore because its nozzle was adapted to crush seeds and the vegetation. It is possible also that it used it as sexual posting at the time of the bridal parades.

Manners of Gastornis were to be connected with those of the ostriches and the nandous of our time. The female built a nest on the ground and laid probably only one egg. The two parents were to keep the nest then to deal with their offspring together after the blossoming.

At all events, Gastornis seems to have been a bird rather not very gregarious. At the beginning, it did not have any serious enemy with share perhaps some small predatory mammals, like the Arctocyon, which were to try to conceal its eggs to him. Thereafter, competition became more serious with the appearance of larger predatory mammals, the such Créodonte and the Mesonychia. The Hyaenodon, appeared there are 41 My, drove out in band, which started the decline of Gastornis , which disappeared at the same time.

References

Tim Hatreds and David Chambers. Prehistory, of the dinosaurs to the first men . Fleurus. 2006. ISBN: 978-2-215-05395-X

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