john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

"Skull morphology of giant terror birds"

Mon, 2006-11-13 00:43 -- John Hawks

Found this in Nature a couple of weeks ago:

Palaeontology: Skull morphology of giant terror birds

Luis B. Chappe and Sara Bertelli

These monstrous birds were probably more agile and less portly than previously thought.

Here's part of figure 1:

Skull of the terror bird, Patagornis marshi

Hmm.... "Less portly?" I wonder....

Life reconstruction of "terror bird," with its hideous "death grimace."

Tags: 
humor

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.