HEALTH/SCIENCE SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2013 Terror bird ‘a vegetarian’

PARIS: A giant “terror bird” deemed to have top predator at that time on land.” been one of Earth’s top predators after the Tuetken and his colleagues, though, demise of the dinosaurs was in fact probably a reassessed the bird’s diet. They began to forge plant-loving herbivore, German scientists a pro-veggie opinion after they measured cal- reported on Thursday. Palaeontologists have cium isotopes in fossilised Gastornis bones wrangled for years about Gastornis, a huge found in a former open-cast brown-coal mine flightless bird that lived between 40 million in Saxony-Anhalt, eastern Germany. and 55 million years ago. The residual signal of these isotopes is a Up to two metres (6.5 feet) high, Gastornis telltale of what proportion of the animal’s diet had a massive beak with a hooked top-a fea- came from meat versus plants. ture that looks so ferocious that many experts The indicator gets “lighter” as the isotope conclude the creature must have been a meat- passes down the food chain. In theory, the eater, hence the “terror bird” monicker. bones of a supposed apex predator like “The terror bird was thought to have used Gastornis should have sent a strong signal. its huge beak to grab and break the neck of its But the team found the isotope levels were prey, which is supported by biomechanical weak, similar to those of herbivorous mammals modelling of its bite force,” said University of and dinosaurs held in museum collections. Bonn geochemist Thomas Tuetken, who took Carnivores, including the Tyrannosaurus rex, part in a new assessment. had a far stronger signature. BANGKOK: Long-tailed macaques run as they snatch food from the farmer village in “It lived after the dinosaurs became extinct The work was showcased on Thursday at an Chachoengsao province 82 km from Bangkok recently. In one Thai village homes are raided, and at a time when mammals were at an early annual international meeting of geochemists property is pinched and locals are attacked by dastardly gangs operating beyond the law — stage of evolution and relatively small. called the Goldschmidt Conference taking but the perpetrators are monkeys, not men. — AFP “The terror bird was thought to have been a place this year in Florence, Italy.—AFP