Prehistoric Giant Goose With Teeth

[n2doc]

Scientists have found a new huge and well-preserved fossil of a goose and duck relative that swam around what is now England 50 million years ago flashing sharp, toothy smiles.

The skull, discovered on the Isle of Sheppey off the southeast coast of England in the Thames Estuary, belonged to a huge ancient bird in the extinct genus Dasornis, which had a whopping 16-foot (5-meter) wingspan.

"Imagine a bird like an ocean-going goose almost the size of a small plane!" said Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany and a member of the team that studied the skull. "By today's standards, these were pretty bizarre animals, but perhaps the strangest thing about them is that they had sharp, tooth-like projections along the cutting edges of the beak."

Scientists had found fossils of other bony-toothed birds, or pelagornithids, in deposits called the London Clay, which underlies much of London, Essex and northern Kent in the southeast of England. This new fossil, from the same clay layer, is one of the most well-preserved fossils ever found there and has provided scientists with previously unknown details of the birds' anatomy. Mayr's study of the fossil is detailed in the Sept. 26 issue of the journal Palaeontology.


An artist's conception of an ancient giant pseudo-toothed bird, or pelagornithid. Credit: Ludger Bollen, from "Der Flug des Archaeopteryx", Quelle+Meyer Vlg.


The skull of Dasornis, showing the fossil specimen and a reconstruction of the complete skull. Credit: Fred Clouter

http://www.livescience.com/animals/080926-giant-geese.html

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. The long-forgotten Rudy Gooseuiliani ?

[LiberalEsto]

2. That's one big mother

Goose

[Politicalboi]

3. Remember the

Flintstone's? I remember Willma using a bird with a saw blade beak to cut bread so there. LOL! This is just another trick God is playing on us. :sarcasm:

[Indenturedebtor]

4. Geese are forkin mean animals. I wouldn't want to run into this sucker

Yikes. Did you know that geese actually occassionally kill people? Yeah, no bullshit. :hide: