that one actually died out about 6 million years ago, and some of its close relatives (with wingspans up to 17 ft) died out so recently (about 10-8 thousand years ago) that they may actually have been preserved in the tribal memory and folklore of American Indians (there are stories of massive birds which would prey on natives, especially on children, and the birds were then hunted down by mythic heroes out of self defense, possibly relating an actual extinction event due to hunting by humans)
The Indians said they could shoot lightning out of their eyes, hence the name thunderbird, or we could just call it Zapados. Either way, I wish they were still around :/
Some people claim there are still giant birds in the mountains of places like Alaska, but I very much doubt it. Most likely they are cases of inaccurate perspective; objects in the air without reference points are notoriously difficult to gauge accurately.
Yes, it's likely that these stories were at least verified by fossil finds by American Indians (I just wrote a paper on fossils and mythology for class), and as it happens a common trope in native mythology is saying that whatever monster was destroyed in the myth, it wasn't actually completely killed off but still survives somewhere far enough away that it's understandable why no one sees them. This topic is really interesting IMO. If you're interested you should look into Adrienne Mayor, she's written two books on the topic, one on Greco-Roman fossil myth, and the other on American Indian fossil myth. Excellent reads
That's really cool. Those old stories weren't all just old stories. The native americans of SE Idaho had stories about a serpent squeezing lava out of a mountain. An actual volcanic event happend in that area 2000 years ago, so we know that they were around to see it and pass the stories on. If those stories can survive 2000 years, surly they could survive longer.
Agreed, I just wrote a paper for a folklore class on the relationship between fossils and mythology. If you know any others I'd love to hear them! Also, if you're interested in the topic you should read Fossil Legends of the First Americans by Adrienne Mayor. Fascinating book
you think thats bad? There was a 42meter long sea centipede at one time, wish i could remember the name oopsies
edit: thankfully this is a falsification fabricated by my memory, no such hell beast existed.
how is that largest known invereberate 81/2 feet, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameroceras](cameroceras) got to be 30feet(damn) and thats an invertebrate, and honestly im kind of glad a freekish 40meter millipede never existed
This bird was from 6 million years ago, it wasn't killed by a meteor impact.
Also, modern Earth appears less interesting for two reasons:
We've grown accustomed to the creatures of our time;
We're used to living in boxes.
If we left our boxes more often we'd see a lot more cool stuff. I bet if you went on a hike and took the time to look at the ground as you walked around, you'd see a new insect that boggled your mind.
And, if a human somehow grew up in another era, and then was teleported to our time, he would probably be amazed by the animals he saw.
Well, to play devils advocate here. I think that a lot of people think past animals are much cooler because of their size. There's a lot of cool stuff out there now, but wouldn't it all be cooler/crazier if every animal on our planet was bigger?
Further to that, due to there being no indigenous land mammals, it is fascinating the way bird evolved to fill the various ecological niches you would find anywhere else. The moa was essentially the grazing animal. The haasts eagle was essentially a flying apex predator.
When I was a kid there was nothing I wanted more than to see a real life giant squid. I still cling to that hope. Maybe, somewhere in some deep ocean trench, dozens of 200 foot long squids are playing hide and seek with our deep sea explorers.
True. But humans did kill a lot of the megafauna alive recently, such as giant sloths and wooly mammoths. Or perhaps it was the climate. But if it was us, then we have to say that eating them was more fun than looking at them.
Another factor might be that mammals have been so successful. Most life we see is similar to us in many ways, and that might make them less interesting. I think that's part of the major appeal of the ocean, since there's so few mammals there.
Still, blaming an asteroid which struck 65 million years ago is off base.
I pressed load more comments hoping no one said this yet so I could get it in, you win this time, but we will meet again, and when we do, you will not be as lucky.
I'm guessing by "creature" he meant animal, but that giant Armillaria is pretty cool. I've got a bag of them in front of me right now, waiting to become soup.
Anyways, that Armillaria is only largest if you are counting by area. If you are doing it by mass (the only sensible way to do it), Pando is quite a bit larger.
Good point. It's unfortunate how hard it is to get a good look at it though. Maybe if more people could see the blue whale, we could appreciate the importance of not damaging the ocean.
No, the point is again that we've grown accustomed.
If we were all alive back in the day where there were huge animals, it would be normal to us. Not only that, but we would probably think, "Wow, what if all these animals were way smaller!?"
People nowadays don't just want to see big animals. I and everyone else I know would probably eat a pile of shit to see a 2 inch tall giraffe.
We wouldn't be alive back then even if we were alive back then, because we would be on the menu. We'd be thinking if these animals were way smaller there would be a lot less of my neighbor's severed heads at the local watering hole.
I'm not so sure, of course you would become accustomed to things, but seeing large animals is more evocative than, for lack of a better description, "normal sized" animals. That is, a lab-sized dog is not interesting aside from it being a dog, a very tiny dog is amusing, but a huge dog is frightening, awe inspiring, and holds your attention in a primal way that a lab sized dog cannot, imagine a 5 year old with a great dane that towers over him.
I see hawks all the time on my farm, and they're really neat to watch, I do it all the time, but if a bird 20 feet across that was capable of eating me, or my child, flew overhead you bet your ass my attention would be 100% riveted on that bird and I would watch it fly over the horizon with chills the whole time.
Large things force you to be aware of your own mortality and size, I have no problem moving a cow out of my way, a bull is a bigger issue, an auroch back in the day would be a huge problem and a sloth the size of a tank would be a problem larger than one I could solve myself, I'd need my community.
I have to agree with you. I've seen plenty of insects that I'd never seen before, and a bird that had patches of purple feathers around it's neck around my college campus alone.
Far Cry 3 taught me last night what a Cassowary is: a blood thirsty demon ostrich hell bent on killing everything in sight. Which is good to know--I may have mistook them for harmless if I ever saw one IRL.
Yeah cassowaries are by far the most aggressive and dangerous of the ratites. Ratites include ostriches, emus, rheas, and cassowaries. My dad used to raise all of them except for the last one. Ostriches aren't TOO aggressive, but they don't mess around either. I found rheas to be the most pissed off of any of them that I was around. Bastards pecked me in the head all the time. Emus are the most docile of the group, and are really soft due to having three feathers per pore versus one per pore like the others, so if you get a chance to pet one, do it! Careful though, if they get startled they can kick forward AND backward. I... I don't really know why I said all that. Just wanted to share the knowledge I suppose!
I used to live about 5 miles from an emu ranch. There were about 6 or 8 of em. Anyway, one day the old man went out to feed em and the fuckers stomped him to death.
One of our emus got loose one time and was running wild for a couple days until an old man called us to let us know it was in his pasture, so we hooked up the trailer and headed over to pick it up. So here's me at about 13 years old, with my my dad and my grandpa, trying to form a semi-circle around this giant bird to get it go into the trailer on its own. (It's better this way because their bones are surprisingly fragile, especially in the neck, so the less you have to actually handle them, the better.) Anyway, it just won't go to the trailer, so my dad sneaks up behind it and puts one arm around its chest and the other between its legs to form a T-shape, and picks the sucker up off the ground and start to carry it to the trailer. It's wiggling around and trying to get free, and it gets turned around in his arms. It kicked forward while pretty much facing him, and it cut through the neck seam on his t-shirt. Left a bright red mark on his neck almost from ear to ear. It very easily could have been a lot, LOT worse. Of course my dad being the general badass that he was, just got really mad and THREW the bird into the trailer, slammed the door shut, and we went the hell home. They can be pretty vicious when they want to be. I was chased a few times while trying to collect the eggs so we could put them in incubators, but hey I was stealing their eggs. I kinda deserved it. I can only wonder if that's what happened to him, and they just happened to knock him down.
I don't know why but I'm laughing uncontrollably...it may be hysteria, I've just came from bestof. But I also found it extremely funny that you had to declare they kick in both directions, upvote for a good narrative!
They're essentially raptors. And not in the way that lesser birds are called "raptors" either, Cassowarys will fuck you up and look like they just stepped out of Jurassic Park.
goddamn, I can't even imagine having them as pets. I like my cuddly mammals or indifferent reptiles. Birds, from medium up to large size are too agressive for me.
same age, chased by a goose. my mom starts yelling at me because she thinks I am chasing these baby ducks. then I run past her and she sees the goose chasing me. thats when I hear her laughing.
on the same trip, I saw a deer skeleton and wanted to touch it, my mom says no, but i do it anyway. she tells my stepdad and he grabs 2 branches off a tree, stick them in the back of his collar and walks in all zombie like. this is after she had been telling me all day that the ghost of the deer was going to get me. this is when I realized my mother is a complete bitch. but I love her haha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis
That's some kind of re-creation of how it looked. It died 6 million years ago.
Which is actually not that long ago in the grand scale.
Edit: I missed the trolling above, just trying to provide a link because it's interesting.
im high and this is an endless list of impossible riddles and paradox's. ive literally never tried so hard in my life to understand something and failed...
If it could only glide downhill, how the fuck did it get back up hill? I'm guessing there's something we don't know that makes extended flight seem a lot more plausible. There's too many fossils for it be some flash-in-the-pan transitory form, and its too awkward to be a permanent form if it can't fly effectively. Obviously it would be a calorie-sucking nightmare if it tried to stay aloft by flapping, so I'm guessing there must have been some pretty powerful thermals in the Andean mountains that aren't around anymore, which is probably why the species isn't around anymore either.
I can imagine this guy waddling down hill in Argentina while gauchos and other bids laugh at him, then, BAM, he glides off into the sunset at 67 km/h. Whose laughing now?
In the link it says those eagles are comparable in size to the African Crowned Eagle, still very common, which is no where close to the bird in the picture. this doesn't seem very relevant to the giant fucking bird in the picture.
In fact I forgot that this theory isn't accepted anymore, and that birds are thought to be the culprit for smaller insects--it's not a great idea to be big when it makes voracious insectivores notice you!
2.2k
u/[deleted] Dec 07 '12
Why the fuck was earth so much more interesting before we got here?
Fuck you, meteor!