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Re: large fossil birds
The largest Mesozoic volant bird was Enantiornis leali, at about a meter
long. You won't find anything over the Cenozoic mass limit (~550 kg) for
birds in the Mesozoic without invoking Utahraptor, Deinocheirus or the
larger therizinosaurs.
Mickey Mortimer
The biggest terrestrial bird from the Mesozoic bird is perhaps the
presumably flightless _Gargantuavis_ or a similar-sized French bird
(unnamed, but also from the LK), around the size of an ostrich - but there
may be hesperornithiforms that were bigger (=heavier in this context) - I'm
not sure. I don't know what the largest volant Mesozoic bird was, but it
may be the soaring _Sapeornis_ - but even this was only around the size of
a gull. There might have been larger enantiornithines by the LK.
Cheers
Tim