Gastornis
Name: Gastornis
(Gaston’s bird).
Phonetic: Gas-tor-niss.
Named By: Hébert - 1855.
Synonyms: Barornis, Diatryma, Gastornis
eduardsii, Gastornis minor, Omorhamphus, Zhongyuanus.
Classification: Chordata, Aves, Anseriformes,
Gastornithidae.
Species: G. parisiensis
(type), G. giganteus, G. geiselensis, G. laurenti,
G.
sarasini, G. russeli, G. xichuanensis.
Diet: Uncertain, but probably herbivorous, refer
to main text for clarification.
Size: Largest individuals easily up to 2 meters
tall.
Known locations: Belgium. China. England.
France. Germany. USA.
Time period: Paleocene to early Eocene.
Fossil representation: Numerous individuals of
varying levels of completeness, but so many fossils have now been
discovered that the form of Gastornis is now known
without doubt.
History and classification of
Gastornis
Gastornis
was first named as a genus in 1855 by E. Hébert. Gastornis
means ‘Gaston’s bird’, and Hébert chose this name to honour
Gaston Planté, the man who discovered the first ever (and hence
holotype) fossils of Gastornis in the French
Argile Plastique
Formation that is not far from Paris. This location was in turn the
inspiration of the type species name G. parisiensis,
which simply
means ‘from Paris’.
Further
fossils were found in the 1860s and 1870s, but early
reconstructions of Gastornis were quite some way
out from what we know
today, and this is mainly due to the first reconstructions being
composites of fossils of different animals. This also led to
Gastornis being depicted as more of a crane-like
bird with a very
slender neck and narrow skull. However the actual skull of Gastornis
had not been found save for a few scant fragments, and this
crane-like skull was the perceived 'ideal’ by a man named Lemoine.
At
this time and on the other side of the Atlantic in the United States of
America, the paleontological community was in the midst of the
‘bone wars’, a fierce rivalry between two naturalists named Edward
Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh who were desperately trying to
outdo one another. In 1874 Cope named a new fossil bird that he
called Diatryma. Diatryma was
a huge flightless bird of considerable
size, though much of the skeleton and skull was still missing. In
1894, Marsh named a new genus based upon just a toe bone called
Barornis, though by 1911 it is was declared
to be synonymous
with Diatryma. Very early in the twentieth
century, several
individuals of Diatryma, including almost
complete skulls and
skeletons had been found, not only in the United States, but in
Europe also, and this would be the beginning of questions about the
validity of Diatryma.
A
similarity between Diatryma and Gastornis
was noted as early as 1884
by the American Elliot Coues, and from this point and throughout
most of the twentieth century a fairly quiet but long running debate
about if Diatryma and Gastornis
were one and the same continued to
run. The main sticking point for both supporters and opponents to the
theory was that the reconstruction of Gastornis by
Lemoine did not look
like Diatryma. However, in 1980 the truth
about Lemoine’s
reconstruction being a composite was realised for the first time, and
when known fossils of Gastornis were carefully
compared to those of
Diatryma there was no doubt about the result: Diatryma
was the same
bird as Gastornis. Because the name Gastornis
was
registered some
nineteen years before Cope named Diatryma, and no
special case could
be argued to preserve Diatryma (as what happened
for
Tyrannosaurus),
all Diatryma fossils whether they were from North
America or Europe became known as fossils of Gastornis.
In
1980 a new genus of bird based upon a foot bone from Henan Province
in China was named as Zhongyuanus xichuanensis.
However in 2013
this genus was renamed as a new species of Gastornis,
G.
xichuanensis.
Gastornis
is now the type genus of a group of birds called the Gastornithidae,
but what surprises many people is the fact the Gastornithidae is
usually placed within a larger group called the Anseriformes which
includes modern birds such as ducks, geese and swans. The
gastornithids are distant relatives of the dromornithids, which
include very large flightless birds that used to live in Australia.
There does not seem to be any link direct link between gastornithids
and phorusrhacids
(better known as the South American ’terror
birds’), though there has been some speculation that one
phorusrhacid named Brontornis
may actually be a gastornithid.
Gastornis the
bird
Gastornis
was a very large flightless bird, with the largest species such as
G. giganteus easily reaching heights of two
meters. The legs were
well developed with a stride that could cover a lot of ground allowing
Gastornis to reach quite fast speeds. The wings by
contrast were so
underdeveloped that they were what is known as vestigial, present,
but serving no practical physical purpose. However the vestigial
wings may have still served a display purpose, especially if a
different colour or type of plumage grew from them. As far as
feathers go, Gastornis is usually recreated with
hair-like feathers
that would have been more for insulation and waterproofing during
rainfall. This analysis was based upon early feathers attributed to
Diatryma, but were later found to be plant
fibres. A second feather
that might belong to Gastornis however has now
been identified, and
this is a vaned feather similar to the body feathers that are commonly
seen on flight capable birds. Again, other different feather
types, particularly those for display may have grown upon different
areas, but no clear remains exist at the time of writing.
When
it was still known as Diatryma, Gastornis
was one of the best
represented prehistoric birds in popular science books about
prehistoric animals. Usually this bird would be depicted as a
terrible predator that chased after primitive horses such as
Hyracotherium,
killing them with their beaks. However this
interpretation is now not only seen to be antiquated but just plain
wrong by most researchers.
Gastornis
had a large and robust beak and when the musculature is reconstructed
it is clear that Gastornis would have been capable
of an exceptionally
strong bite. This was once the only evidence that people needed to
suggest that Gastornis was a predator because the
strength of the beak
was far beyond that necessary for an herbivorous diet. However the
beak of Gastornis is also notable for not having a
hooked tip, a
feature that is common in meat eating birds as it greatly helps to hook
into and tear off strips of flesh in the absence of teeth. The feet
of Gastornis are also noted as not having curved
talons which could
hook into and tear into bodies, another feature commonly seen in
meat eating birds, but again absent in Gastornis.
One
of the most conclusive studies concerning the diet of Gastornis
was
published in 2014 (Angst et al) and was focused upon the analysis
of calcium isotopes preserved in the fossils of Gastornis.
These
isotopes clearly indicate that the Gastornis
fossils tested all came
from herbivores (plant eaters) and not carnivores (meat
eaters). Because of this Gastornis is now
perceived to be mostly if
not exclusively herbivorous and using its powerful beak to shear
through tough vegetation.
As
a genus Gastornis is known to have existed for many
millions of years
and with fossils known from Europe, Asia and North America, there
is no doubt that Gastornis was one of the most
successful of the large
flightless birds that once roamed the planet.
Click these names for more information.
Dinornis, Dromornis, Titanis, Brontornis.
Further reading
- Annonce de la découverte d'un oiseau fossile de taille
gigantesque, trouvé à la partie inférieure de l'argile plastique des
terrains parisiens ["Announcement of the discovery of a fossil bird
of gigantic size, found in the lower Argile Plastique formation of
the Paris region"]. - C. R. Hebd. Academy Sciiences Paris
(in French) 40: 554–557. - 1855.
- Note sur le tibia du Gastornis pariensis
[sic] [Note on the
tibia of Gastornis parisiensis]. - C. R.
Hebd. Academy of
Sciences Paris 40: 579–582. E. Hébert - 1855a.
- Note sur le femur du Gastornis pariensis
[sic] [Note on the
femur of Gastornis parisiensis]. - C. R.
Hebd. Academy of
Sciences Paris 40: 579–582. E. Hébert - 1855b.
- On a gigantic bird from the Eocene of New Mexico. - Proceedings
of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 28 (2):
10–11. - Edward Drinker Cope - 1876.
- Recherches sur les oiseaux fossiles des terrains tertiaires
inférieurs des environs de Reims 2. - Matot-Braine, Reims.
pp. 75–170. - V. Lemoine - 1881a.
- Sur le Gastornis Edwardsii et le Remiornis
Heberti de l'éocène
inférieur des environs de Reims ["On G. edwardsii and R. heberti
from the Lower Eocene of the Reims area"]. - C. R. Hebd.
Acad. Sci. Paris (in French) 93: 1157–1159. - V.
Lemoine - 1881b.
- The skeleton of Diatryma, a gigantic bird
from the Lower Eocene
of Wyoming. - Buletin of the American Museum of Natural History,
37(11): 307-354. - W. D. Matthew, W. Granger
& W. Stein - 1917.
- The Supposed Plumage of the Eocene Bird Diatryma.
- American
Museum Novitates 62: 1–4. - Theodore Dru Alison Cockerell
- 1923.
- Omorhamphus, a New Flightless Bird from the
Lower Eocene of
Wyoming. - Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.
LXVII (1): 51–65. - W. J. Sinclair - 1928.
- Fossil Bird Remains from the Eocene of Wyoming. - Condor 35
(3): 115–118. - Alexander Wetmore - 1933.
- New form of the Gastornithidae from the Lower Eocene of the
Xichuan, Honan. - Vertebrata Palasiatica 18: 111-115. -
L. Hou - 1980.
- Biomechanics of the jaw apparatus of the gigantic Eocene bird
Diatryma: Implications for diet and mode of life.
- Paleobiology
17 (2): 95–120. - Lawrence Witmer & Kenneth
Rose - 1991.
- The status of the Late Paleocene birds Gastornis
and Remiornis.
- Los Angeles: Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
(Sciences series) 36:97-108. - L. D. Martin - 1992.
- Reappraisal of the Eocene groundbird Diatryma
(Aves:
Anserimorphae). - Papers in avian paleontology honoring Pierce
Brodkorb–Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Science Series
36: 109–125. - Allison Andors - 1992.
- The status of the Late Paleocene birds Gastornis
and Remiornis.
- Papers in Avian Paleontology honoring Pierce Brodkorb. Natural
History Museum of Los Angeles County, Science Series, 36:
97-108. - L. D. Martin - 1992.
- New remains of the giant bird Gastornis from
the Upper Paleocene of
the eastern Paris Basin and the relationships between Gastornis
and
Diatryma. - N. Jb. Geol. Palâont. Mh.,
(3): 179-190.
- E. Buffetaut - 1997.
- Footprints of Giant Birds from the Upper Eocene of the Paris
Basin: An Ichnological Enigma. - Ichnos 11 (3–4):
357–362. - Eric Buffetaut - 2004.
- Giant Eocene Bird Footprints From Northwest Washington, USA. -
Palaeontology 55 (6): 1293–1305. - George E. Mustoe,
David S. Tucker & Keith L. Kemplin - 2012.
- The giant bird Gastornis in Asia: A revision
of Zhongyuanus
xichuanensis Hou, 1980, from the Early Eocene of China.
-
Paleontological Journal, 47(11): 1302-1307. - E.
Buffetaut - 2013.
- Reappraisal of the bone inventory of Gastornis
geiselensis
(Fischer, 1978) from the Eocene Geiseltal Fossillagerstatte
(Saxony-Anhalt, Germany). - Neues Jahrbuch für Geologie und
Paläontologie-Abhandlungen, 269(2): 203-220. - M.
Hullmund - 2013.
- Isotopic and anatomical evidence of an herbivorous diet in the
Early Tertiary giant bird Gastornis. Implications
for the structure
of Paleocene terrestrial ecosystems. - Naturwissenschaften -
D. Angst, C. Lécuyer, R. Amiot, E. Buffetaut, F.
Fourel, F. Martineau, S. Legendre, A. Abourachid
& A. Herrel - 2014.
- Description of a new species of Gastornis (Aves, Gastornithiformes)
from the early Eocene of La Borie, southwestern France. - Geobios. 63:
39–46. - Cécile Mourer-Chauviré & Estelle Bourdon - 2020.
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