55m year old 'Terror' bird's beak was worse than it's bite

A team of German researchers' findings suggest that the giant 'terror bird', which lived in Europe between 55 to 40 million years ago, was most likely not a meat eater.

The terror bird - also known as Gastornis - was a flightless bird up to two metres in height with an enormous, ferocious beak.

Based upon its size and ominous appearance, scientists have long assumed that it was a ruthless carnivore.

Dr Thomas Tutken, from the University of Bonn said that the terror bird was thought to have used its huge beak to grab and break the neck of its prey, which is supported by biomechanical modelling of its bite force.

He said that the bird lived after the dinosaurs became extinct and at a time when mammals were at an early stage of evolution and relatively small; thus, the terror bird was though to have been a top predator at that time on land.

Dr Tutken and his colleagues Dr Meinolf Hellmund, Dr Stephen Galer and Petra Held analysed the calcium isotope composition in fossilised bones, they have been able to identify what proportion of a creature's diet was plant or animal and, on that basis, their position in the food chain of the local ecosystem.

They tested the method first with herbivorous and carnivorous dinosaurs - including top predator T-Rex - as well as mammals living today, before applying it to terror bird bones held in the Geiseltal collection at Martin-Luther University in Halle.

Their results show that the calcium isotope compositions of terror bird bones are similar to those of herbivorous mammals and dinosaurs and not carnivorous ones.