ExtinctZoo - The Largest Bird To Ever Fly

Episode Date: April 11, 2026

Dinosaurs are well known for being absolute units, so it may not come as too much of a surprise, that the largest animal to fly that was not a pterosaur, happened to be a dinosaur, go figure.

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your boxes. Listeners of this show will get a $75-sponsored job credit at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. I want you to retreat in the depths of your brain for a second. And imagine that I've strapped you to a time machine and have sent you all the way back to prehistoric Argentina during the late Miocene period. Let's say between six to nine million years ago. Now, think about those very first few steps out of the time machine and then being told that a prehistoric creature is now hunting you. Where are you going to look first? Well, probably right around you, peering back and forth, into the sides, trying to get a lock on

some prehistoric nightmare charging straight at you. Or if I was exceptionally cruel and dropped into a body of water, you'd probably just close your eyes and give up, or perhaps look down. The point is, in both of these scenarios, I doubt your first reaction would be to look up, seeing that given the predators and animals that live around us now, we generally don't think of dangerous coming from above. And yet, here in prehistoric Argentina, all those million of years ago, that is exactly where you want to have your eyes peeled, for it was in this ancient place that the largest bird to ever fly existed, and it wasn't exactly a friendly kind of big bird either. This was the Argentavis, the pinnacle of avian dinosaurs, and just about the scariest

bird to ever fly. The story of its place in our history is relatively recent, despite its ancient age, only being put on our radars in the last few decades, as it was in 1980 that his existence was first made aware of. The holotype for this creature was discovered in a country that's no stranger to terrifying prehistoric animals, which would be, of course, again, Argentina. We're in a group of paleontologists from the Museo de la Plata that stumbled upon the remains of the skull, a quadrate, and various parts of the legs and arms of a bird, which were found in the Hwaquarian epicquin formation of the La Pampa province. The bones themselves have been badly crushed and were quite fragmentary, so not exactly in a pristine condition. Yet, the team was

able to still clearly tell three things. One, that they had found a bird, two, that it was a new kind of species, and three, that it was huge, leading to it being described and named, based on location it was found, giving it the name Argentavis Magnificens, meaning the magnificent Argentine bird, or the magnificent silver bird. So a pretty strong start, and things would only get more grand, as within the coming years, more excursions of the site revealed three more partially complete skeletons, which confirmed again that this was a new creature and one of record-breaking proportions, and it very quickly gained some hype in the media, as I mean, who doesn't love the thought of giant birds like those straight out of Lord of the Rings. The only problem was, is that

estimating the true size of Argentavis has proved a bit tricky due to limited material. In its original description, the founders of the bones gave it a mammoth wingspan of 7.5 meters or 24 feet 7 inches, making it almost laughably larger than any other bird, and on par with the giant terrorsorsors of old, even now sizing the likes of Kloberankus, a terrasor that once held the title is the largest toothed dinosaur. It's another way to really think about the scale this size, is that this wingspan is about double the length of a fully grown rhino. And afterwards, things somehow got even more crazy, as the estimates were not reduced in the coming years, but instead increased, with a slightly larger size of a.3 meters or 27 feet being

proposed, meaning you could place three of the biggest bald eagles flying around side by side with their wings fully unstretched, and still have more room to fill. That's how big this bird supposedly was. But since then, things for the Argentavis have cooled down slightly, as nowadays estimates typically suggest that fully grown individuals had a wingspan of about six meters or nearly 20 feet, which is still obviously absolutely giant and it's almost double that of the current largest living bird by wingspan, the wandering albatross. And really, there is only one bird known to rival the size of the Argentavis, the fellow extinct Pelagornis Sandersi, a type of pseudotooth bird that inhabited the coast of South Carolina and possessed a wingspan that was equal to that of the Argentavis's first size estimate, giving it the crown for the widest wingspan. Yet with that said, if you made a Pelagornian

and Argentavis fly into each other, let alone fight, I guarantee you that the Pelagornis is going to get absolutely creamed. For the Argentavis had comfortably retained the title as the heaviest bird to ever fly. And by that argument, it's also still the biggest to rule the skies, with the max reasonable estimates of its weight standing around 72 kilos or 159 pounds. So similar to the weight you see in mid-sized jaguars. And for reference, the golden eagle, which is used to hunt wolves in Mongolia, is over 10 times lighter. So just imagine what this beast could do. And it also, though by the way greatly outweighs the Pelagornus, which is only half its weight, despite being longer.

So I ask again, who is the real big bird? Not to mention that even when just standing around, it greatly outsized the Pelagornus, as when it was not in flight, but walking on land, its head would have likely peered straight over you, coming in at 6.5 feet for nearly two meters. Again, imagine this, a two meter tall bird that can fly. Yeah. In addition to its intimidating size, another area where the Argentavis easily beats the Pelagornis is sheer scariness. As Pelagornus was something of a super-sized seagull, being a sea bird that lived

along the coast and fed primarily on fish, using its pseudo-like teeth and nip and grip, large slimy sushi, if you will, while on the other hand, Argentavis was something more of a menace, but exactly what kind of menace is a little blurrier on the edges. Historically, it has been classified as belonging to the family prehistoric birds known as the Teretornithae, which were birds of prey that lived in North and South America, from the end days of the Allegocene, all the up to the late Pleistocene. And as far as we can tell, they are most closely related to the extent New World vultures. And because of this, it's sometimes been thought that they probably looked a lot like them too, and perhaps acted in similar ways, being scavengers that scoured huge

swathes of land for opportunity, will then perhaps also bein-clect of parasites. In other words, taking hunted prey away from other predators, using their size, giant razor-sharp beaks, and talons as, uh, effective debate tools, so you could say. Though, in reality, it's also thought that the Argentavus was really a bit more fife. see them being just your simple neighborhood scavenger and bully, as specifically the legs that possessed were relatively long for its already huge size, as well as being powerful and sturdy, leading to the new idea that the Argentavis would fly around the skies looking for prey, before then landing on the ground, where it would then proceed to actually chase its prey down,

and often swallowed them whole thanks to their highly flexible mouths, that could create a massive gap that was big enough to gulp down a full-sized hair in one swift go. And that might not sound that big, but for the record, not even a wolf can do that. course though, in this scenario they likely still would have scavenged when never given the chance. And then there is also a small subset of people that are still hopeful, so you could say, that Argentavis was basically a big, giant eagle that swooped up anything and everything it saw, utilizing its powerful talents and its beak once more. But I will say, this reasoning seems somewhat unlikely. As unlike an eagle, the Argentavis was a bit of a weak flyer, having a lightly

built frame, all things considered. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavah Theater.com, only at Yamava Resort and Casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You win? Must be 21 to enter. that would have made it rather inefficient at actions such as flapping, and as the hunting tactic that I relied a lot on flying doesn't seem like it would make much sense.

And thus, some paleontologists think that flying was more reserved for finding the carry-on, spotting targets, or simply traveling as Argentavis did have an incredibly large range. With paleontologists estimating that the domain of one individual might have been 500 square kilometers, or 190 square miles, which is larger than the size in most cities, including Philadelphia. And so obviously, that's a lot of space, even for the biggest animal to be. to ever fly. And the flying portion also leads to another question which paleontologists have, and this is, how exactly did the Argentavis even manage to fly in the first place, given its massive size? And the answer to that is, it might have needed to rely on a mix of different strategies in the right conditions to get the job done, so to speak. For example, it's believed that to even get off the ground, an individual would have needed to reach 40 kilometers or 25 miles per hour

to lift off, so a bit like a loving plane. And that's not exactly slow, as it's not even far off of Usain Bolt's fastest speed. So again, we're not talking about a light run here. And despite what you may be thinking right now, its long legs were not sufficient to allow the bird to run at these speeds. In reality, to achieve this, it's thought that the Argentavis would just heat itself off clips and drops, or run into very strong winds where a pun would lift off. But personally, I like the heating idea better. And then once actually in the air, the Argentavis likely needed some additional help to stay afloat, utilizing a tactic known as thermal soaring, wherein it would essentially ride columns of warm air like an elevator, as warm air rises,

which would then not only make flying possible, but also help reduce the amount of flapping required. And then when it did flap, it was, of course, helpful that these guys had their giant wings, which when extended took up an area of about 91 square feet, which is, by the way, larger than some studio apartments you'll find in New York City. However, like I briefly mentioned before, despite being huge, the Argentavis did have more graceful wings, so to speak, in the sense that like most other birds, its wings were highly sensitive parts of their body and were prone to injury. And thus, despite being giant, they did have to be very careful, especially when engaging with other predators.

Though, lucky for this bird, there wasn't a whole lot of equal competition around. And based of the locality in which it was discovered, it suggested that the largest mammalian predators would have been the likes of the saber-toothed sparsodontes, namely the Thalac of Smilis, which in most cases was smaller than the Argentavis. And even at its max weight estimate, it was still vastly beat by the Argentavis in just about every other department. with a bird being wider, longer, and taller. So, I don't think any of these guys are trying to take down this giant, or even trying to stop it. And the same ghosts are pretty much every other mammalian predator in its vicinity, who posed even less of a threat, mainly being made up of smaller sparsetons,

prosynids that were no bigger than raccoons, and various kinds of smaller rodents. In fact, of all the animals discovered within its locality, only one is known to have been larger, and it was ironically another bird, yet not one capable flight, as I'm talking about the terror bird. Terabird. These guys really don't need a whole introduction. But for a quick recap, these were typically giant predatory birds that ruled South America for millions of years. And here in Argentina the time, things weren't so different, with three different kinds of been coexisted with Argentavis. Yet just one of them outsized it, and that would be the Devincentia. This was coincidentally not just to fill a big bird, but literally one of the largest tererbirds to have ever evolved in their

over 40 million years of existence, with bone suggesting that matured adult would have stood as tall as 2.4 meters, or 7.9 feet, while weighing up to 350 kilograms or 770 pounds. So, we're essentially talking about a bare-sized bird, and one that was armed with a giant razor-sharp beak and long, powerful legs that had some very pointy claws on the end of them, which is all to say that this was one tough predator, and likely the only thing the Argentavis had to be on edge around. Fortunately for our boy, though, or girl, the Argentavis had the opportunity to fly and find areas where the terror birds were not. And along with flight, the Argentavis had some pretty nifty other traits that allowed it to be how to successful in Argentina. And this included exceptionally keen eyes, and it's not that its eyesight would

have been similar to that modern day eagles and vultures, requiring that same telescopic level of vision in order to spot a variety of prey and carry-on from above. And though not to the same degree as its eyes, paleontologists do believe that the Argentavis also had a pretty powerful sense of smell that might have been similar to that of living carry-on birds, in the sense that they could explicitly pick up on distinct odors created by deceased animals up to a mile away, even if the body was out of sight were partially covered up. In other words, if there was a dead body around, the Argentavis was among the first to know about it. And based off of the formations in which it lived, this food on any given day might have been made up of proscyonids, polydolopomorphyia,

di-delophomorphs, zanorphs, zanorphins, rodents, various reptiles, like top turns, and endo-ungulets. So it definitely had some fair pickings to choose from, which is certainly a bonus for ensuring that any offspring they had were well fed. And this is especially important in their case, as the offspring of Argentavis were just like their parents, absolute wavers. The eggs alone on these guys are believed to have weighed almost one kilo or 2.2 pounds, so just slightly smaller than that of an ostrich's egg, meaning the chicks came out big and ready to throw down, or chow down. And it seems that baby Argentavis quite enjoy the company of their parents,

as it's believed they stayed in their nest for an unusually long time, up to 16 months, to be exact, whereas many birds' chicks save for less than a year in the vicinity. And this could be due to flying being a bit more tricky for them to learn, as well as they might be waiting to reach the size in which predation became less virality for them. Whatever the case though, it all seemed to work out nicely for the Argentavus, as it was highly successful within Miocene Argentina. That being said though, the giant bird would relatively quickly experience trouble,

as before the Miocene had even ended, about 6.8 million years ago, the Argentavis had all but been erased from the fossil record. No more Big Bird. And in some ways, the disappearance of this bird is quite mysterious, as its family, the Territon Orthodei, did just fine, and fine for a long time after. fine for a long time afterwards, proceeding to exist until just 10,000 years ago. While additionally, no explicit extinction event is known to have affected Argentina at the time of its disappearance. However, there is a loose hypothesis which is based off of the global climate

with the late Miocene, where at that point the Earth saw global cooling. And this might have caused final turnover in the area and changed the environment in a way that harmed Argentavis, likely making flying harder as the colder temps meant less warm air to surf on. And though it's absolutely more than possible that something else took them out, I would certainly not be surprised if it was mother nature that roughly ended their existence. Because as you all know, it has quite the tendency for that, coming in at just perhaps under us. Anyways, thanks for watching and until next time. On Extinct Zoo. Wireless can feel like a world of traps, but not with visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot, powered by Verizon for $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Plus,

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