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Description

Brontornis burmeisteri, it's name literally means "Thunder Bird" and like with another, more famous dinosaur, phonetically it sounds similar to "brawn", both facts make this creature one of the most aptly named dinosaurs.

It was one of the largest known terror birds, standing up to 2.8 m tall and weighing up to 400 kg! What made it stand out compared to contemporary phorusrhacids like Kelenken and Phorusrhacos was it's powerful, robust builds. While most terror birds were essentially killer ostriches, gracile and fast moving pursuit predators, Brontornis was a bulky ambush predator which relied on its bruit strength to subdue its prey.

It stalked South America some 15-11 million years ago and was likely the apex predator of its time. The giant island that was Miocene South America housed a whole plethora of giant and bizzare animals, many of whom have no modern relatives.

One of those strange beasts were the astrapotheriids, large hoofed ungulates who were part of meridiungulats, the same group as the liptoternas (like Macrauchenia) and the notoungulates (like Toxodon), which has no modern representatives.

Like with the terror birds, the history of the astrapotheriids dates back to the Eocene, and by the mid Miocene many large, derived forms roamed the continent. These hulking herbivores resembled weird hippo-tapir hybrids and were thought to have been amphibious.

One of the largest, Granastrapotherium snorki, was also one of the strangest. Weighing up to 2.5 tons, it was comparable in size to the largest rhinos alive today, and its skull sported meter long tusk-like canines and its large, withdrawn nostrils suggest it had a trunk. That, along with its bulky, squat-legged body made it eerily similar to the gomphothere elephants that roamed the Northern Hemisphere at the same time.

With their massive size, adult Granastrapotherium were likely safe from predation from even the largest of terror birds.

Description

Brontornis burmeisteri, it's name literally means "Thunder Bird" and like with another, more famous dinosaur, phonetically it sounds similar to "brawn", both facts make this creature one of the most aptly named dinosaurs.

It was one of the largest known terror birds, standing up to 2.8 m tall and weighing up to 400 kg! What made it stand out compared to contemporary phorusrhacids like Kelenken and Phorusrhacos was it's powerful, robust builds. While most terror birds were essentially killer ostriches, gracile and fast moving pursuit predators, Brontornis was a bulky ambush predator which relied on its bruit strength to subdue its prey.

It stalked South America some 15-11 million years ago and was likely the apex predator of its time. The giant island that was Miocene South America housed a whole plethora of giant and bizzare animals, many of whom have no modern relatives.

One of those strange beasts were the astrapotheriids, large hoofed ungulates who were part of meridiungulats, the same group as the liptoternas (like Macrauchenia) and the notoungulates (like Toxodon), which has no modern representatives.

Like with the terror birds, the history of the astrapotheriids dates back to the Eocene, and by the mid Miocene many large, derived forms roamed the continent. These hulking herbivores resembled weird hippo-tapir hybrids and were thought to have been amphibious.

One of the largest, Granastrapotherium snorki, was also one of the strangest. Weighing up to 2.5 tons, it was comparable in size to the largest rhinos alive today, and its skull sported meter long tusk-like canines and its large, withdrawn nostrils suggest it had a trunk. That, along with its bulky, squat-legged body made it eerily similar to the gomphothere elephants that roamed the Northern Hemisphere at the same time.

With their massive size, adult Granastrapotherium were likely safe from predation from even the largest of terror birds.