Meet Jenny -- Genyornis -- prehistoric emu

[Tame Emu Guy]

Genyornis was a large flightless bird, considerably taller and heavier than the modern ostrich or emu. It had powerful legs and tiny wings, and probably most closely resembled its living relatives, ducks and geese. But instead of having webbed feet and a duckbill, Genyornis had large hoof-like claws on its toes and a big beak, with which it ate fruit and nuts, and perhaps small prey. Like modern birds, it had no teeth, but relied on gizzard stones to assist its digestion.

[http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbou...e/dinosaur-walk/meet-the-skeletons/genyornis/]

And pop over to Planet Rothschildi, where we are discussing all the emu's prehistoric pals.

S.E.

 

[Y N dottes]

wow, imagine keeping one of those, lol

 

[Raptor65]

Anyone up for a game?

It's called "Is it a Bird or a non-Avian Dinosaur?"

Here's the first one:

Dinosaur!
This is Oviraptor, a former resident of Mongolia, these animals had toothless beaks and full body feathers including plumulaceous feathers on the wings. The name was given as a mistake as the original skeleton was found laying over a nest of eggs leading the discoverers to believe it was raiding the nest, later it was found that the eggs actually belonged to the Dinosaur and it had died protecting the nest, possibly during a sandstorm or as a dune collapsed on top of it.

Round 2:

Dinosaur again!
This is Ornithomimus. It sure looks like a bird with it's toothless beak and very Ratite-like appearance but it is in fact a non-Avian Dinosaur (Sorry for the picture, couldn't help myself).

Dinosaurs like this could be found all over the world, made famous in the stampede scene from Jurassic Park.

Round 3:

Bird!
This is Pelagornis, a relative of modern day Pelicans and Storks and like their relatives they were sea birds with a wingspan that may have reached up to 20 feet/6 meters.
The 'teeth' are actually not teeth at all but bony spikes growing out of the bones of the jaw that would have helped it grab a hold of fish at sea.

Round 4:

Bird!
This is Kelenken, a 'Terror Bird'. May surprise you to know these birds are similar to modern day Crane. Kelenken possessed the largest head of any known bird, almost as long as your outstretched arm.

Round 5:

Dinosaur!
This is Jinfengopteryx, and while it looks like a Bird it is actually a non-Avian Dinosaur. These were small animals about the size of a chicken.

Round 6:

Bird!
This is Hesperornis. This is a bird with a twist, it lived during the Cretaceous before Tyrannosaurus and had teeth in both the upper and lower jaw. They were aquatic birds that lived in the ancient Western Interior Seaway (Sometimes referred to as 'The Most Dangerous Sea') and lived along side marine reptiles such as Mosasaurus and Plesiosaurus.

Round 7:

Bird!
This is Ichthyornis, another Cretaceous sea bird found in the Western Interior Seaway, like Hesperornis it had teeth but was also capable of flight.

Round 8:

Dinosaur!
This is Mononykus, a small Dinosaur slightly larger than a chicken found all over the world, they had short powerful arms with a single enormous claw on each limb and very short peg-like teeth. It's not known for sure what they used their claws for but they may have been insectivorous, using their claws to pull open fallen trees and dig for insects.

Round 9:

Dinosaur!
This is Microraptor, it was about the size of a crow, had four wings and is one of the few Dinosaurs which are known to have preserved pigmentation, the above picture is what it actually looked like in life, such is the exquisite detail preserved in the fossil.

Last Round:

Dinosaur!
This is Anchiornis, it's name means 'Near Bird'. This is one of the oldest animals in this list, dating back to the middle of the Jurassic 160 million years ago.
Like Microraptor, the colors and feathers you see in the picture are the real deal, this is what the animal actually looked like in life, reconstructed with the preserved pigments in the fossilized feathers.

Bonus, What is this leg from?

It's a Dinornis leg! An enormous Ratite also known as the Giant Moa, not much separates the Emu from these Birds, the Moa went extinct around 1400 AD in New Zealand and it's unfossilized bones can still be found there.

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Anyone up for a game?

It's called "Is it a Bird or a non-Avian Dinosaur?"

Here's the first one:

Dinosaur!
This is Oviraptor, a former resident of Mongolia, these animals had toothless beaks and full body feathers including plumulaceous feathers on the wings. The name was given as a mistake as the original skeleton was found laying over a nest of eggs leading the discoverers to believe it was raiding the nest, later it was found that the eggs actually belonged to the Dinosaur and it had died protecting the nest, possibly during a sandstorm or as a dune collapsed on top of it.

Round 2:

Dinosaur again!
This is Ornithomimus. It sure looks like a bird with it's toothless beak and very Ratite-like appearance but it is in fact a non-Avian Dinosaur (Sorry for the picture, couldn't help myself).

Dinosaurs like this could be found all over the world, made famous in the stampede scene from Jurassic Park.

Round 3:

Bird!
This is Pelagornis, a relative of modern day Pelicans and Storks and like their relatives they were sea birds with a wingspan that may have reached up to 20 feet/6 meters.
The 'teeth' are actually not teeth at all but bony spikes growing out of the bones of the jaw that would have helped it grab a hold of fish at sea.

Round 4:

Bird!
This is Kelenken, a 'Terror Bird'. May surprise you to know these birds are similar to modern day Crane. Kelenken possessed the largest head of any known bird, almost as long as your outstretched arm.

Round 5:

Dinosaur!
This is Jinfengopteryx, and while it looks like a Bird it is actually a non-Avian Dinosaur. These were small animals about the size of a chicken.

Round 6:

Bird!
This is Hesperornis. This is a bird with a twist, it lived during the Cretaceous before Tyrannosaurus and had teeth in both the upper and lower jaw. They were aquatic birds that lived in the ancient Western Interior Seaway (Sometimes referred to as 'The Most Dangerous Sea') and lived along side marine reptiles such as Mosasaurus and Plesiosaurus.

Round 7:

Bird!
This is Ichthyornis, another Cretaceous sea bird found in the Western Interior Seaway, like Hesperornis it had teeth but was also capable of flight.

Round 8:

Dinosaur!
This is Mononykus, a small Dinosaur slightly larger than a chicken found all over the world, they had short powerful arms with a single enormous claw on each limb and very short peg-like teeth. It's not known for sure what they used their claws for but they may have been insectivorous, using their claws to pull open fallen trees and dig for insects.

Round 9:

Dinosaur!
This is Microraptor, it was about the size of a crow, had four wings and is one of the few Dinosaurs which are known to have preserved pigmentation, the above picture is what it actually looked like in life, such is the exquisite detail preserved in the fossil.

Last Round:

Dinosaur!
This is Anchiornis, it's name means 'Near Bird'. This is one of the oldest animals in this list, dating back to the middle of the Jurassic 160 million years ago.
Like Microraptor, the colors and feathers you see in the picture are the real deal, this is what the animal actually looked like in life, reconstructed with the preserved pigments in the fossilized feathers.

Bonus, What is this leg from?

It's a Dinornis leg! An enormous Ratite also known as the Giant Moa, not much separates the Emu from these Birds, the Moa went extinct around 1400 AD in New Zealand and it's unfossilized bones can still be found there.

1- non-Avian Dinosaur(looks similar to Nomingia (from the Late Cretaceous)
2-non-Avian Dinosaur
3- bird
4- bird- looks to be Titanis from North America in the Tertiary and Quaternary time.
5-bird
6-bird(looks like a Cormorant)
7-bird(looks like a Gannet)
8-non-Avian Dinosaur
9-bird
Bonus- I have no idea but I'm going to guess its form the Titanis bird.

 

[cluckcluckluke]

Oh didn't see that it had answers. I got a few right but those little crow Microraptor got me, should have know that.

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

Oh wow! This is great. I scored so poorly!

I like ornithomimus. If you cover the tail, it really does look like a ratite.

It doesn’t surprise me that kelenken became extinct. It doesn’t seem balanced.

I’d like to study moninokus – how did it evolve thus? So specialised?

A knowledge of aerofoils (sailing and square parachutes) makes microraptors’ four wings splendidly counter-intuitive for me. Again, unsurprising that it’s extinct.

And finally, I want a giant Moa for Christmas, and I’m gonna put it on a leash, and take it to Starbucks.

A really impressive contribution, Raptor. Thank you kindly.

S.E.

 

[stoopid]

Cool. Thanks for sharing!

 

[Raptor65]

Kelenken was actually an apex predator in it's time, they aren't called 'Terror Birds' for no reason and they appeared around 62 million years ago up until just 2 million years ago when they went extinct so they had a very long run of success.

Mononykus falls into the Alvarezsaurid family of Dinosaurs, they first appeared around 160 million years ago and died out and the end of the Mesozoic, the earliest Alvarezsaurids looked like regular Dinosaurs, three fingers on long arms but with an enlarged thumb claw, as time went on there seems to have been a preference toward further enlargement of the thumb claw to the point the other fingers became little more than bumps or gone entirely along with shorter, more powerful arms, smaller body size became the order of the day as well. Exactly what they were doing with those limbs is a mystery but they clearly used them for something, best guess so far has been that it was the Mesozoic equivalent of an Ant Eater.

Microraptor was also a very common body design for animals of that type, it's thought they were arboreal, using the claws to grip tree trunks and branches while gliding to and from trees and even attacking prey from the trees, at least one Microraptor has been found with an intact Sparrow-sized bird in it's stomach. The adaption to using the hind legs as wings would have allowed the Dinosaur to control it's rate of descent very well and I don't doubt they could also have flown short distances to get up into trees like modern day Turkeys.
It's very possible that competition with Microraptor and other similar Dinosaurs is what drove Birds to become what they are today, they were hunters and eaters of Birds and this may have been one of the reasons the ancestors of modern Birds show preference to the wings rather than the wings and legs together, something beat them to it and you can't have two animals occupying the same niche, at least not for very long before one gets the upper hand and drives the other to extinction.

As for the Giant Moa, you might have found a saddle to be more appropriate.

As far as I know though, there aren't any documented first hand accounts of the Moa as Europeans arrived just shortly after the Moa was driven to extinction by the Maori. If only they had held on for another 600 years...

 

[ES Emus]

Thanks Raptor!
I have been a dinosaur nut since I was a kid and have been collecting fossils since I was 12 years old. I still have a large fossil collection which includes some dino fossils! Maybe that is why I enjoy my emus so much...

 

[Tame Emu Guy]

E.S.,

I gotta say, fossils have always extra fascinated me. I'd rather own a fossil than almost any other object.

Supreme Emu

P.S.: Now that people know that dinosaurs had feathers, does this mean that feathers will no longer be seen as wimpy? Will large hairy men wear feather boas while they rob liquor stores at knifepoint?