The Argentavis: Largest Feathered Wheel on Earth

[Christophe]

Here is the largest feathered bird to have lived on Earth, here is a reconstruction:



I believed in a fake at the beginning but it did exist: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis

Interesting paraglider-style takeoff technique

It is believed that to take off, it had to first climb a height and then run along the slope facing the wind, like a hang glider pilot.

Corolaire: why do you think all the big flounces have disappeared?

[Christophe]

Another flying monster: http://www.pourlascience.fr/ewb_pages/a ... -33205.php

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pelagornis_sandersi

[Ahmed]

... why do you think all the big flounces have disappeared?

The large size of these animals corresponds to a positive specialization in a specific niche, but in the event of a change in the environment (which is inevitable on a certain time scale) this leads to the extinction of the species.
This is to put in relation to the subject on the super-organisms to which this analysis applies, with the difference that it is the SOs themselves which modify their environment.

In a more modest format, but with a clear disproportion (compared to other birds) of the wing surface, the swifts must also take precautions for takeoff, always delicate in this configuration, ideal for the only flight.

[Flytox]

In a more modest format, but with a clear disproportion (compared to other birds) of the wing surface, the swifts must also take precautions for takeoff, always delicate in this configuration, ideal for the only flight.

+1; Even, I lived in an old house where many swifts nested in the roof. Regularly they fell into the attic after making the wrong entry for their nest. They quickly exhausted themselves trying to take off from the floor and trying to escape through the closed skylight. So, I regularly went to inspect the attic to catch them and release them through the upstairs window. At least 3 or 4 per year have escaped the worst.

They are really beautiful critters, as beautiful in the hand as when it flies .... They have bristles that rise as if they had been made eyes