'Terror bird' was just a scary-looking vegetarian

A giant "terror bird" deemed to have been one of Earth's top predators after the demise of the dinosaurs was probably a chicken-hearted herbivore, scientists say.
It is a fiercely debated question: was the 'terror bird', which lived in Europe between 55 to 40 million years ago, really a terrifying predator or just a gentle herbivore?
German researchers have studied fossilised remains of terror birds from a former open-cast brown coal mine in the Geiseltal (Saxony-Anhalt, Germany) and their findings indicate the creature 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.

"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," said Dr Thomas Tutken, from the University of Bonn.
"It 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," said Tutken.

Recent research has cast some doubt on its diet, however. Palaeontologists in the US found footprints believed to belong to the American cousin of Gastornis, and these do not show the imprints of sharp claws, used to grapple prey, that might be expected of a raptor.

Also, the bird's sheer size and inability to move fast has made some believe it couldn't have predated on early mammals - though others claim it might have ambushed them.
But, without conclusive findings either way, the dietary inclinations of Gastornis remained a mystery.
Tutken and his colleagues took a new geochemical approach to determine the diet of Gastornis.
By analysing 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, researchers said.

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.
"Tooth enamel preserves original geochemical signatures much better than bone, but since Gastornis didn't have any teeth, we've had to work with their bones to do our calcium isotope assay," said Tutken.