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Article says that Titanis is only Terror Bird known outside South America, but I found an article describing 'terror bird' find from Antarctica: here —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikoyan21 ( talk • contribs) 01:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
PainMan ( talk) 02:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed this section
The impressive size and fearsome habits of these birds, as well as the late survival of Titanis (which at one time was erroneously believed to have been encountered by humans), caused phorusrhacids to feature in some works of popular culture. Phorusrhacos longissimus made an appearance in one episode of the series Walking with Beasts and Prehistoric Park. The " Carakiller", a fictional bird from the "what-if" series The Future Is Wild, is a caracara which had evolved into a phorusrhacid-like animal that essentially fills the same ecological niche as Andalgalornis did 7 million years before the episode takes place.
I see two problems with this section:
a.) it's too much like a trivia section although presented in narrative format.
b.) I don't see it's relevance to the "Terror Birds". Two of the TV "series" (in actuality they were mini-series) cited, Walking with Prehistoric Beasts and Prehistoric Park are documentaries. Also, The Future is Wild is not fiction but rather a scientifically-based extrapolation on what Earth's fauna might look like in 5, 100, and 200 million years in the future. What has a hypothetical creature to do with real--but extinct--ones?
I updated the article to include the fact that species of terror birds have been found in Florida and Texas.
Changed "millions of years ago", and similar phrases, to the scientific term Before Present or BP.
PainMan ( talk) 02:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems that there could be a clear relationship to Therapod dinosaurs here, from which birds evolved. Is there any research on this? Cyberia1 ( talk) 03:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Chihuahua? Spaniel? Labrador? Rottweiler? Totnesmartin ( talk) 13:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Why did terror birds become extinct at the very beginning of the pleistocene i mean if you think about where titanis was discovered, it was found in the florida lakes where they were once dry land due to a drop in sea level but if mcfadden was right about terror birds becoming extinct 2 mya then why did they go extinct at that time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 20:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
wait the pleistocene began 2.6 million years ago right —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 20:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Ah man not cool i can not believe this give me one good reason to believe this cause i don't think either climate or mammalian predators wiped them out cause they were fast running animals and long before cats anddogs they did lived along side mammal predators like thylacosmilus (Correct me if i spelt that wrong) so the only explanation for the bird's extinct is man-related —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 22:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Aslan10000 may be off his rocker a bit, but the Gelasian age (2.6-1.8 Mya) was moved to the Pleistocene, so that means the birds lived into the Pleistocene. The contradiction arises because that change wasn't ratified officially (i.e. worldwide) until this year, so the 2006 paper on Titanis uses the older North American terminology that included the Gelasian as part of the Pliocene. KarlM ( talk) 08:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank You!-- user:Aslan10000 talk
thank you KarlM, now here is a reference to something that they may be late pleistocene after all [3] and [4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 22:20, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Ok so maybe what i've learned is not exactly accurate! -- user:Aslan10000
actually it says here that there is unproven evidence that terror birds did live until 10,000 years ago http://www.themiamihurricane.com/2008/09/04/terror-birds-the-tyrants-of-patagonia/ -- User:Zippue
I don't really know I'm just trying to help! -- user:zippue —Preceding undated comment added 05:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC).
I removed this statement
in that, 1) I don't recall hearing any theory or hypothesis claiming that Titanis was specifically killed by humans, 2) "superior North American Mammalian predators" sounds too unencyclopedic and biased, 3) there's also the possibility of climate change, and 4) The Americas didn't collide: the Panamanian Isthmus emerged between them.-- Mr Fink ( talk) 17:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/schweiz/njbgeol/2010/00000256/00000002/art00008?token=00601f0dd96107943d08e786e586546243138423b20635d3e7634705c5e4e2663433b393f6a333f2566623b2d21cfe68 well at least look at this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 04:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
I just found this on google so I'd thought I'd just share is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.107.147.249 ( talk) 01:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Not really, I just wanted to look for evidence that they lived in the pleistocene in general. i've already gone over humanity the destroyer phase. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.107.147.249 ( talk) 06:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I think the term "Terror Bird" should be made a seperate disambig page. This article doesn't even mention Gastornis, which also goes by that name. 74.109.66.92 ( talk) 12:23, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Some reconstructions of Terror Birds show a grasping foot i.e. Titanis. Is this diagnostic of Terror Birds or not? A large flightless bird with a grasping foot suggests that it subdued its prey with its feet like modern birds of prey. In addition they have strongly hooked beaks for tearing off large chunks to swallow, also like modern birds of prey. A strongly hooked beak and strong grasping feet are both unlike Seriemas and rather suggests their ancestors were morphologically conventional birds of prey. Another point of comparison is the skull of the Philippine Eagle and the terrestrial legs of the Secretary Bird or Savanna Hawk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TSpencerGrow ( talk • contribs) 01:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
terror birds, were a clade of large carnivorous flightless birds
According to an article dated 8/29/2013 on Science Daily ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130829214559.htm), new research from the University of Bonn focusing on the ratio of calcium isotopes in Phorusrhacidae fossils indicates that the ratio is similar to those of herbivore mammals and dinosaurs instead of to the carnivorous kinds. --Mirrordor 05:16, 2 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirrordor ( talk • contribs)
May we revisit this section? The whole land bridge / carnivore mammal thing - /info/en/?search=Great_American_Interchange - depends on the Isthmus of Panama emerging around 2.5Myr ago. http://www.livescience.com/50450-when-panama-land-bridge-appeared.html - if it's correct - pushes that date back another 10Myr and makes the whole Extinction section here, together with other articles, pretty bogus. At the least it would have to be rewritten as continental proximity rather than land-bridging.
Could we also revisit the fossil date record for the most recent recorded date for these birds? I know there's a fringe pressure to put them into the far more recent Quaternary extinction event, but some properly academic dating of the more recently-deposited fossils must surely be available. JohnHarris ( talk) 11:43, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
The obvious conclusion from the timing of phorusrhacid extinction is that competition from carnivoran mammals was the driving force. If someone can cite peer-reviewed research suggesting otherwise, fine, but we cannot describe the normative explanation as some kind of irrational dogma. Titanis did invade North America, but not all that successfully; its range was limited, it never diversified, and it didn't survive very long. Quite likely it had a competitive advantage at the beginning in having an appearance and predatory style distinct from those of all previously resident N. American carnivores, which helped it gain a foothold. Regarding S. America, consider these statements I just removed: "Carnivorans such as Cyonasua had already invaded South America in the Miocene, yet this had no effect on the phorusrhacids. In addition phorusrhacids appear to have been already suffered a great loss of diversity in the Pliocene before canids or felids reached South America (at which point only one subfamily and a small number of species were left)." Isn't there a contradiction in saying the early procyonid carnivoran migrants had no effect, and then pointing out that phorusrhacid diversity was already in decline before the felids and canids (not to mention ursids) showed up? WolfmanSF ( talk) 00:06, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
There is no primary evidence to support phorusrhacids meeting extinction through competition, either, as all papers claiming so were written before palaeontology started to question the idea of mammalian supremacy. There may be no recent papers written on this topic yet, but that does not make papers using an outdated paradigm correct. The timing of the eztxintions does not fit (since phorusrhacids met carnivorans in the Miocene, became even more dominant, and were in the decline by the Late Pliocene before other carnivorans made it through). And it is wrong to say that Carnivora had an inherent advantage over the supposedly short-lived bird lineages, as bathornithids dominated for a long period of time alongside Carnivora. Yes, it was temporary, but every single dominant group goes extinct at some point. We cannot say that they were inferior, outcompeted models because they died out. There is no inherent advantage of being Carnivora. Finally, do note that by the time of 2.5 MYA, felines were too specialized (for ambush), canids too small, and bears not predatory enough to be effective competition for the large phorusrhacids alive at rhe time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 03:11, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
It's not about being a fanboy, it's about the fact that extinct animals are heavily subject to cultural perception, even in science. And it is irresponsible to use a sensational "mammals defeated phorusrhacids" scenario as the only possible or even the most likely cause of extinction. More likely, mundane causes like climatic changes killed off phorusrhacids.
Do explain how on earth felids (specialist ambushers and likely utilizing a different, slower prey base than phorusrhacids) or Pliocene canids (which were jackal or coyote-sized in the Americas) could pose a competition to the larger phorusrhacids. They are either living in different habitats or eating different prey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 03:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
All of these propositions seem incredibly speculative. I feel that they border upon being unencyclopedic. Lythronaxargestes ( talk | contribs) 03:53, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
This paper ( http://www.academia.edu/8440321/Sparassodonta_vs_Carnivora) is about sparassodonts but also discusses phorusrhacids: one may find it of interest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 03:58, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Considering that all sparassodonts were extinct by the Late Pliocene and that phorusrhacids were already on the wane, it would be a bigger mystery if South America's endothermic predators really were outcompeted into extinction-more likely, the major climatic upheavals of the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene did the job. Also, the dingo vs thylacine hypothesis is highly controversial, and is again based on the outdated idea of placentals being smarter than marsupials (debunked in multiple scientific papers). In that one we more likely have a common-cause situation (direct human activity) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 06:25, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Were there any terror birds in Pleistocene South America? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarsath3 ( talk • contribs) 02:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, but I meant confirmed Pleistocene terror birds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarsath3 ( talk • contribs) 02:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
B. burmeisteri Taxonomic position is highly controversial Ostrich2Emperor ( talk) 17:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Shouldnt the Film Called Terror bird be here since its the first Film of Ever to have terror birds and where the games with Terror birds in it Kamata kun overlord 2016 ( talk) 15:30, 10 April 2024 (UTC)
This
level-5 vital article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Article says that Titanis is only Terror Bird known outside South America, but I found an article describing 'terror bird' find from Antarctica: here —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mikoyan21 ( talk • contribs) 01:25, 19 December 2007 (UTC)
PainMan ( talk) 02:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
I removed this section
The impressive size and fearsome habits of these birds, as well as the late survival of Titanis (which at one time was erroneously believed to have been encountered by humans), caused phorusrhacids to feature in some works of popular culture. Phorusrhacos longissimus made an appearance in one episode of the series Walking with Beasts and Prehistoric Park. The " Carakiller", a fictional bird from the "what-if" series The Future Is Wild, is a caracara which had evolved into a phorusrhacid-like animal that essentially fills the same ecological niche as Andalgalornis did 7 million years before the episode takes place.
I see two problems with this section:
a.) it's too much like a trivia section although presented in narrative format.
b.) I don't see it's relevance to the "Terror Birds". Two of the TV "series" (in actuality they were mini-series) cited, Walking with Prehistoric Beasts and Prehistoric Park are documentaries. Also, The Future is Wild is not fiction but rather a scientifically-based extrapolation on what Earth's fauna might look like in 5, 100, and 200 million years in the future. What has a hypothetical creature to do with real--but extinct--ones?
I updated the article to include the fact that species of terror birds have been found in Florida and Texas.
Changed "millions of years ago", and similar phrases, to the scientific term Before Present or BP.
PainMan ( talk) 02:46, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
It seems that there could be a clear relationship to Therapod dinosaurs here, from which birds evolved. Is there any research on this? Cyberia1 ( talk) 03:57, 5 March 2008 (UTC)
Chihuahua? Spaniel? Labrador? Rottweiler? Totnesmartin ( talk) 13:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)
Why did terror birds become extinct at the very beginning of the pleistocene i mean if you think about where titanis was discovered, it was found in the florida lakes where they were once dry land due to a drop in sea level but if mcfadden was right about terror birds becoming extinct 2 mya then why did they go extinct at that time? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 20:56, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
wait the pleistocene began 2.6 million years ago right —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 20:32, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Ah man not cool i can not believe this give me one good reason to believe this cause i don't think either climate or mammalian predators wiped them out cause they were fast running animals and long before cats anddogs they did lived along side mammal predators like thylacosmilus (Correct me if i spelt that wrong) so the only explanation for the bird's extinct is man-related —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 22:39, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
Aslan10000 may be off his rocker a bit, but the Gelasian age (2.6-1.8 Mya) was moved to the Pleistocene, so that means the birds lived into the Pleistocene. The contradiction arises because that change wasn't ratified officially (i.e. worldwide) until this year, so the 2006 paper on Titanis uses the older North American terminology that included the Gelasian as part of the Pliocene. KarlM ( talk) 08:15, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
Thank You!-- user:Aslan10000 talk
thank you KarlM, now here is a reference to something that they may be late pleistocene after all [3] and [4] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 22:20, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
Ok so maybe what i've learned is not exactly accurate! -- user:Aslan10000
actually it says here that there is unproven evidence that terror birds did live until 10,000 years ago http://www.themiamihurricane.com/2008/09/04/terror-birds-the-tyrants-of-patagonia/ -- User:Zippue
I don't really know I'm just trying to help! -- user:zippue —Preceding undated comment added 05:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC).
I removed this statement
in that, 1) I don't recall hearing any theory or hypothesis claiming that Titanis was specifically killed by humans, 2) "superior North American Mammalian predators" sounds too unencyclopedic and biased, 3) there's also the possibility of climate change, and 4) The Americas didn't collide: the Panamanian Isthmus emerged between them.-- Mr Fink ( talk) 17:44, 30 October 2009 (UTC)
http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/schweiz/njbgeol/2010/00000256/00000002/art00008?token=00601f0dd96107943d08e786e586546243138423b20635d3e7634705c5e4e2663433b393f6a333f2566623b2d21cfe68 well at least look at this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Aslan10000 ( talk • contribs) 04:34, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
I just found this on google so I'd thought I'd just share is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.107.147.249 ( talk) 01:08, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Not really, I just wanted to look for evidence that they lived in the pleistocene in general. i've already gone over humanity the destroyer phase. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.107.147.249 ( talk) 06:49, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
I think the term "Terror Bird" should be made a seperate disambig page. This article doesn't even mention Gastornis, which also goes by that name. 74.109.66.92 ( talk) 12:23, 11 September 2010 (UTC)
Some reconstructions of Terror Birds show a grasping foot i.e. Titanis. Is this diagnostic of Terror Birds or not? A large flightless bird with a grasping foot suggests that it subdued its prey with its feet like modern birds of prey. In addition they have strongly hooked beaks for tearing off large chunks to swallow, also like modern birds of prey. A strongly hooked beak and strong grasping feet are both unlike Seriemas and rather suggests their ancestors were morphologically conventional birds of prey. Another point of comparison is the skull of the Philippine Eagle and the terrestrial legs of the Secretary Bird or Savanna Hawk. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TSpencerGrow ( talk • contribs) 01:59, 18 July 2011 (UTC)
terror birds, were a clade of large carnivorous flightless birds
According to an article dated 8/29/2013 on Science Daily ( http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130829214559.htm), new research from the University of Bonn focusing on the ratio of calcium isotopes in Phorusrhacidae fossils indicates that the ratio is similar to those of herbivore mammals and dinosaurs instead of to the carnivorous kinds. --Mirrordor 05:16, 2 September 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mirrordor ( talk • contribs)
May we revisit this section? The whole land bridge / carnivore mammal thing - /info/en/?search=Great_American_Interchange - depends on the Isthmus of Panama emerging around 2.5Myr ago. http://www.livescience.com/50450-when-panama-land-bridge-appeared.html - if it's correct - pushes that date back another 10Myr and makes the whole Extinction section here, together with other articles, pretty bogus. At the least it would have to be rewritten as continental proximity rather than land-bridging.
Could we also revisit the fossil date record for the most recent recorded date for these birds? I know there's a fringe pressure to put them into the far more recent Quaternary extinction event, but some properly academic dating of the more recently-deposited fossils must surely be available. JohnHarris ( talk) 11:43, 10 August 2015 (UTC)
The obvious conclusion from the timing of phorusrhacid extinction is that competition from carnivoran mammals was the driving force. If someone can cite peer-reviewed research suggesting otherwise, fine, but we cannot describe the normative explanation as some kind of irrational dogma. Titanis did invade North America, but not all that successfully; its range was limited, it never diversified, and it didn't survive very long. Quite likely it had a competitive advantage at the beginning in having an appearance and predatory style distinct from those of all previously resident N. American carnivores, which helped it gain a foothold. Regarding S. America, consider these statements I just removed: "Carnivorans such as Cyonasua had already invaded South America in the Miocene, yet this had no effect on the phorusrhacids. In addition phorusrhacids appear to have been already suffered a great loss of diversity in the Pliocene before canids or felids reached South America (at which point only one subfamily and a small number of species were left)." Isn't there a contradiction in saying the early procyonid carnivoran migrants had no effect, and then pointing out that phorusrhacid diversity was already in decline before the felids and canids (not to mention ursids) showed up? WolfmanSF ( talk) 00:06, 17 September 2017 (UTC)
There is no primary evidence to support phorusrhacids meeting extinction through competition, either, as all papers claiming so were written before palaeontology started to question the idea of mammalian supremacy. There may be no recent papers written on this topic yet, but that does not make papers using an outdated paradigm correct. The timing of the eztxintions does not fit (since phorusrhacids met carnivorans in the Miocene, became even more dominant, and were in the decline by the Late Pliocene before other carnivorans made it through). And it is wrong to say that Carnivora had an inherent advantage over the supposedly short-lived bird lineages, as bathornithids dominated for a long period of time alongside Carnivora. Yes, it was temporary, but every single dominant group goes extinct at some point. We cannot say that they were inferior, outcompeted models because they died out. There is no inherent advantage of being Carnivora. Finally, do note that by the time of 2.5 MYA, felines were too specialized (for ambush), canids too small, and bears not predatory enough to be effective competition for the large phorusrhacids alive at rhe time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 03:11, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
It's not about being a fanboy, it's about the fact that extinct animals are heavily subject to cultural perception, even in science. And it is irresponsible to use a sensational "mammals defeated phorusrhacids" scenario as the only possible or even the most likely cause of extinction. More likely, mundane causes like climatic changes killed off phorusrhacids.
Do explain how on earth felids (specialist ambushers and likely utilizing a different, slower prey base than phorusrhacids) or Pliocene canids (which were jackal or coyote-sized in the Americas) could pose a competition to the larger phorusrhacids. They are either living in different habitats or eating different prey. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 03:46, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
All of these propositions seem incredibly speculative. I feel that they border upon being unencyclopedic. Lythronaxargestes ( talk | contribs) 03:53, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
This paper ( http://www.academia.edu/8440321/Sparassodonta_vs_Carnivora) is about sparassodonts but also discusses phorusrhacids: one may find it of interest. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 03:58, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Considering that all sparassodonts were extinct by the Late Pliocene and that phorusrhacids were already on the wane, it would be a bigger mystery if South America's endothermic predators really were outcompeted into extinction-more likely, the major climatic upheavals of the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene did the job. Also, the dingo vs thylacine hypothesis is highly controversial, and is again based on the outdated idea of placentals being smarter than marsupials (debunked in multiple scientific papers). In that one we more likely have a common-cause situation (direct human activity) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.112.14.173 ( talk) 06:25, 18 September 2017 (UTC)
Were there any terror birds in Pleistocene South America? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarsath3 ( talk • contribs) 02:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
Yeah, but I meant confirmed Pleistocene terror birds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sarsath3 ( talk • contribs) 02:06, 3 December 2018 (UTC)
B. burmeisteri Taxonomic position is highly controversial Ostrich2Emperor ( talk) 17:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
Shouldnt the Film Called Terror bird be here since its the first Film of Ever to have terror birds and where the games with Terror birds in it Kamata kun overlord 2016 ( talk) 15:30, 10 April 2024 (UTC)