Re: Giant birds

[bh480@scn.org]

Re: Giant birds
From: Ben Creisler bh480@scn.org 
The most likely reading of Phorusrhacus is "wrinkle 
bearer" referring to the rugose texture of the bone on the 
type jaw,  originally thought to belong to a groundsloth 
as mentioned in a previous posting.  My Greek dictionaries 
list the following meanings for Greek rhakos: a ragged 
garment, a wrinkle, related to the verb rhako "to tear in 
pieces; to produce wrinkles."  I have a photocopy of the 
original description in Spanish but it would take me hours 
to it dig out of my boxes of copies.  As I recall it is 
only described in a paragraph or so but does mention the 
rugose appearance of the bone.  One particularly odd 
reading of the name I have seen is "ragged thief".... 
probably because of confusion with the Greek word phor, 
meaning "thief." Ameghino's names are a real puzzle 
sometimes (as well as often being hard to pronounce in 
both Spanish and English!).