Re: Re-T-Rex?

[Mickey Mortimer <Mickey_Mortimer111@msn.com>]

Amtoine Grant wrote-

> Little help please. I was doing a Google search the other ay and I
> recall breezing past the picture of a predatory bird, possibly a
> phorruracid(sp?) with two-clawed hands. i think the name was something
> like Tiornis? Does anybody know the creature of which I speak?

Titanis walleri

The hand isn't actually complete.  Details are in the DML archives, but I
think only the mobile base of a digit is known, suggesting the digit was
well developed, perhaps with a large claw.

>From Alvarenga and Hofling, 2003-

Genus Titanis Brodkorb, 1963
Type Species - Titanis walleri Brodkorb, 1963.
Included Species - Only the type species.
Distribution - Upper Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene of
Florida and Texas (U.S.A.).
Diagnosis - Size similar to that of Phorusrhacos, with a
less sturdy tarsometatarsus than that of Devincenzia. The
mid-trochlea, in the more distal portion, is spread out
onto the sides, differentiating it from the two aforementioned
species (Fig. 22C), this aspect reminding one
of the Mesembriornithinae.
Titanis walleri Brodkorb, 1963
Holotype - Distal portion of the right tarsometatarsus
(UF-4108).
Hypodigm - Holotype; phalanx I of digit III (UF-4109)
associated (?) to the holotype; phalanx 1 of digit III
(TMM-43060-115); proximal extremity of the left
tibiotarsus (UF-7333); complete left carpometacarpus
(UF-30003, Fig. 6A); two complete cervical vertebras
(C2 and C3); the proximal portion of the right fibula,
phalanges 1, 2 and 3 of the left digit III and two phalanges
1 of digit IV (left and right) (UF wt/n.).
Horizon and Locality - Upper Pliocene to Lower Pleistocene
(end of the Blancanian to the beginning of the
Irvingtonian) of Florida, (Inglis, on the border between
Gilchrist and Columbia County), and the Pleistocene
of Texas (Baskin, 1995).
Measurements - Tables 1 and 6, Carr (1981), Chandler
(1994) and Baskin (1995).
Illustrations - Brodkorb, (1963), Carr (1981), Chandler
(1994) and Baskin (1995).
Remarks - This is the only Phorusrhacidae known outside
South America, one of the most recent species,
attesting to these birds crossing over to North America
on the forming of the land-bridge connecting North
and South America, in the Panama region, at the end
of the Pliocene. When compared with other
Phorusrhacidae, the examined material indicates a large
variation in the size of Titanis, maybe leading one to
presume sexual dimorphism.

Mickey Mortimer
Undergraduate, Earth and Space Sciences
University of Washington
The Theropod Database - http://students.washington.edu/eoraptor/Home.html