Crazy Creatures Gastornis gigantea

Gastornis was a large flightless bird Time: 50 Million Years that lived during the Eocene period Ago around 50 million years ago. Period: Palaeocene Gastornis was a very large bird and many palaeontologists thought it was The Terror a fierce predator. But it might not be – let's have a look and make up our own Bird? minds! Your task 1: Draw Gastornis! It had:

A huge strong beak A thick, chunky head Very long powerful legs Tony useless wings A flexible strong neck Your task 2: Gastornis was a very large bird, almost 2m in height. Is that bigger or smaller than the biggest bird today?

Creature Fact! Your task 3: Gastornis fossils are found all over the world, including in England, Belgium, France, Germany and America! Gastornis eggs were Can you think of any animals alive today that live in these places? huge, almost 25cm long! That's as big as two ostritch eggs!

Your task 4: Can you draw some birds with different beaks?

Are there any birds with a beak like Gastornis? Do you think Gastornis might have eaten the same things as those birds?

Hint: think about Parrots Your task 5: Gastornis might have eaten hard foods like nuts, seeds and roots. How do you think its strong beak helped it with these foods?

Your task 6: We don't know what kind of feathers Gastornis had. Do you think it had long, colourful feathers, or short scruffy feathers?

Why do you think that?

Research key words:

Palaeocene Ratites Elephant birds CRAZYOMETER! How weird do you think this creature was?

Boring! Yeah Ok A bit weird Really weird! Woah! By Tim Bertelink - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=49203812