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| Kelenken (Wikimedia Commons) |
A close relative of Phorusrhacos--the
poster genus for the family of extinct feathered carnivores known as
"terror birds"--Kelenken is known only from the remains of a single,
oversized skull and a handful of foot bones described in 2007. That's
enough for paleontologists to have reconstructed this prehistoric bird as a mid-sized, flightless carnivore of the mid-Miocene
forests of Patagonia, although it's as yet unknown why Kelenken had
such a huge head and beak (probably it was another means to intimidate
the mammalian megafauna of prehistoric South America).
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