Outdoors
Our giant Thunder Birds fell prey to disease and drought

UNIVERSITY researchers investigating a rare fossil find in South Australia have uncovered clues to why the last of Australia’s giant birds, the dromornithids or Thunder Birds, became extinct.

The Thunder Birds, Genyornis newtoni¸ are believed to have been five to six times heavier than an adult emu and stood about two metres tall.

How disease and drought factored into their extinction has been detailed in

the journal Papers in Palaeontology by Flinders University researchers who

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