A new species of the South American fossil terror bird or Llallawavis scagliai, which is carnivorous and flightless, has been discovered.
Described in the paper "A new Mesembriornithinae (Aves, Phorusrhacidae) provides new insights into the phylogeny and sensory capabilities of terror birds," the new species has more than 90 percent of the skeleton intricately preserved.
Unearthed in 2010 in northeastern Argentina, the terror bird's fossilized skeleton makes it the most complete terror bird ever discovered. It weighed about 40 pounds and stood about four feet tall.
Included in the details of the new specimen are its complete trachea, voice box, the skull's the auditory region, the complete palate and bones for focussing the eye, according to the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.
The recent discovery explains the interaction of the giant extinct predators with their environment. With the revealed details of anatomy, which rarely preserve in the fossil record, there is a better understanding of the sensory capabilities of the extinct predatory birds.
The research, which was from the Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias de la Tierra (CICTERRA), CONICET and the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, was published in the latest issue of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.
It was authored by Claudia P. Tambussi, Matías L. Taglioretti, Alejandro Dondas, Fernando Scaglia and Federico J. Degrange as the lead author.
According to the researchers, it is likely that Llallawavis scagliai lived around 3.5 million years ago, which is near the end of the reign of terror birds.
According to Degrange, the estimated mean hearing for the terror bird was below the average for living birds and the discovery of this species reveals that terror birds, scientifically known as phorusracids, were more diverse in the Pliocene than formerly assumed.