The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1914-06-25
BIGGEST BIRD THAT EVER LIVED
Lived Two and a Half Million Years
Ago.

During the summer Of 1918, while
engaged in describing and photo
graphing the specimens representing
the fossil remains of vertebrates in
the extensive collections belonging
to the American Museum of Natural
History, the United States National
Museum and the Peabody Museum,
of Yale University, l met with the
fragments of the lower longleg bones
that belonged to an extinct bird of
enormous size. They were complete
ly fossilized, and had been discover
ed by member. Of the expedition of
1912, sent out by the American Muse
um of Natural History in the Wa
satch of Wyoming. Biologists are
pretty we'll agreed that this particu-
lar region is some 100000 years
Old
These fossil remains consisted Of
two immense toe joints and parts of
the trochleae of the Observation-Disclosures
OF an adult individual. The tarso-
metatarsus in birds leg is the last
of the three of the long bones of that
limb; the trochleae are those pro-
jections at it's distal end which articu-
late with the tee bones.
This was all that had been found
OLA bird giant which had flourished
over 100000 years ago in the CEN
trail region of this country. 1t was
not all that we knew about it, how
ever; for, many years ago, the late
Prof. Cope had described, in the Pro-
ceedings of the Academy of Natural
Science, of Philadelphia 1S76, I'D
and subsequently, in the report of the
United Stats Geographical Survey
West of the Tooth Meridian (Vol w,
p 70,) the fossil remains of a bird of
gigantic proportions, of which he said
that this species was Of large size,
the proximal end of the tarso-meta-
tarsai being nearly twice the diane
ter of that of the ostrich. It's dis
covery introduced this group of birds
to the known fauna of North Ameri-
ca, recent and extinct, and demons
trates that this continent has not
been destitute of the gigantic forms
Of birds now confined to the South
ern Hemisphere fauna" This dis
tinguished paleontologist named this
long-extinct species Diatryma gigan-
tea, AMI considered it to be quite dis
tinct from any of the exisisting true
ostriches.
We know that an old male African
ostrich will grow to be at least eight
feet tall, and Cope surmised, in his
description of Diatryma gigantea,
that it was the bird twice the size of
an adult ostrich-in other words, it
may have attained a height of some
Is or 16 feet, or about three times
the height of an ordinary man.
1t would seem to have belonged
somewhere in the group of great
f1ightless birds with keelleH sternums
known as the Ratitae, or in the Sup
ersuborder Dromoegnathe of my own
classification of birds. Doubtless it
was ostrich like in appearance, while
not directly allied to that genus, or
still less to the moas of the New
Zealand group of islands, of which
there were some 20 species, now all
extinct; of these Dinornis maximus
was, without douba, bird that
grew to be at least IL feet tall, or
four feet taller than the tallest of
existing ostriches (Newton.)
Upon comparing the fossil remains
of this extinct bird of ponderous pro-
portions, belonging to the American
Museum of Natural History, with
those of Cope's Diatryma gigantea, l
at once recognized the fact that it,
too, belonged in the same genus, or
the genus Diatryma, and have since
bestowed upon it the name Diatryma
ajax. Upon measuring the bones and
fragments of bones representing it,
it was apparent that these were from
form considerably larger than
Cope's D. gigantea, and could such a
thing ever have happened as to have
an old male African ostrich stand be-
side a full-grown individual of this
extinct, gigantic bird of the Eocene of
Wyoming the former would have ap-
peared, by way of comparison, veri-
table pygmy in its proportions.
In order to appreciate the prob
able size of Diatryma ajax I have
made drawing for the purpose. The
accompanying illustration is based
on that drawing.
The representation of D. ajax ere
shown is intended merely to give its
size and height as compared with an