Some of the largest pterodactyls had wingspans of up to 35 feet. There were bigger flying creatures than Pelagornis sandersi. “Instead, the bone just extends from the jaw.” “They don’t have enamel, they don’t grow in sockets, and they aren’t lost and replaced throughout the creature’s life span,” he said. These teeth, Ksepka said, are not anything like our own. To snap up its meals, the bird used pseudo-teeth - a characteristic that Ksepka found just as fascinating as the bird’s massive wingspan. So even though the Charleston airport, where the fossil was found, is on dry land today, it used to be an ocean.”Īn incredibly efficient glider, Pelagornis sandersi could probably soar for miles and miles over the sea, swooping down to catch its prey in the waves. “It was a bit warmer 25 million years ago,” Ksepka said, “and the sea level was higher. Like the albatross, Pelagornis sandersi spent much of its time over water. Its telltale beak allowed Ksepka to identify the find as a previously unknown species of pelagornithid, an extinct group of giant seabirds known for bony, toothlike spikes that lined their upper and lower jaws. Paleontologist Dan Ksepka examines the fossilized skull of what may be the biggest flying bird ever found. Once airborne, it relied on air currents rising from the ocean to keep it gliding. It had to run downhill into a head wind, catching the air like a hang glider. Similar in many ways to a modern-day albatross - although with at least twice the wingspan and very different in appearance, Ksepka said - the bird probably needed a lot of help to fly.
Pelagornis sandersi relied on the ocean to keep it aloft. If Ksepka’s simulations are correct, Pelagornis sandersi would be the largest airborne bird ever discovered. He modeled a probable method of flight for the long-extinct bird, named as a new species this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The answer came from Dan Ksepka, paleontologist and science curator at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Conn. When South Carolina construction workers came across the giant, winged fossil at the Charleston airport in 1983, they had to use a backhoe to pull the bird, which lived about 25 million years ago, up from the earth.īut if the bird was actually a brand-new species, researchers faced a big question: Could such a large bird, with a wingspan of 20 to 24 feet, actually get off the ground? After all, the larger the bird, the less likely its wings are able to lift it unaided.