Re: birds and dinosaurs

[Amtoine Grant <ajgrant@eastlink.ca>]

On Sunday, July 4, 2004, at 12:27  PM, David Marjanovic wrote:

> > Which reminds me, what did the murderous flightless birds from after
> > the age of dinosaurs like Phorusrhacos(sp?), Diatryma, etc., evolve
> > from . . .
>
> They all seem to have evolved after the K-Pg mass extinction. 
> *Gastornis*
> (including "*Diatryma*") seems to be an anseriform (a goose turned
> godzilla), and for *Phorusrhacus*, find out what a seriema (*Cariama*) 
> is.
> :-) http://images.google.com finds decent results for "seriema".

Interesting, because it seems to me that they would have occupied the 
same predatorial niche as larger tyrannosaurs, except on a smaller 
scale. Both are birdlike/birds, with powerful crushing jaws as they're 
main weapon, with presumably useless forelimbs and are long-legged 
bipeds. Only real difference is the absence of a long, counterbalancing 
tail.