Terror birds are fucking overrated predators. Only reason why people obsess over them is because they're the only hypercarnivore terrestrial bird, the closest thing to Dinosaur raptors. People keep glazing these birds because they're annoyed that mammals dominate the current age. But frankly, terror birds are terrible predators compared to mammals.Reasons:>On average, terror birds weigh less than mammalian apex predator.>Sharp beaks but are not as useful or powerful as toothed jaws.>No teeth means can't hold down large prey with mouth like canines, felines, and bears can.>Reduced forelimbs means less weapons for hunting and combat unlike cats and bears that can use all four limbs.>Can't wrestle nor jump on backs like cats and bears do which allows them to take down big preys like bovines.>No evidence for pack hunting or high intelligence like canines. Canines can compete against bears and felines because of their numbers.>Pathetic hollow bones means they're very robust.The North and South American interchange resulted in these birds being bullied and displaced by chad mammals. They aren't as good as hunters as cats nor can they beat one in combat unless they have significant weight advantage. Felines, Canines (with numbers), and Bears have a good chance at taking down large herbivore preys but terror birds? They're way to weak and lack the weaponry. Terror birds only hunted small or medium sized prey animals.
Think about it this way. A tiger and a kelenken have to kill a Gaur Bull. How would they fare? The tiger has a good chance of killing the bull by jumping on its back and severing its spine with its powerful jaws or clamp down on its throat to suffocate it. Tigers are also agile enough to avoid the bull's attack as well as having first strike advantage because they're excellent stealth ambush predators. Meanwhile what can the Kelenken do? Peck at the bull's thick hide? Kung Fu kick the bull's even thicker skull? It has no avenue of actually beating the bovine. The Kelenken also isn't as agile as a feline so its just gonna get gored by the bull's horn. Terror Birds were very fast so at least it can just run away when confronted by mammalchads kek.Anyway, can someone post this on Reddit? I wanna see their comments but don't wanna go there.
Remember when there was a small theory that some terror birds were re-evolving hands?
>>4787415Correct. Very overrated animals.
>>4787434Birds fell for the wing meme and so cannot evolve clawed hands ever again.
>>4787575birbcucks… we were too short sighted…
>>4787575Didn't stop people in the 90s from coming up with shit like this.
>>4787415Nature is not a video game tier list you absolute mongoloid.
>>4787575not so fast
>>4787415>The North and South American interchange resulted in these birds being bullied and displaced by chad mammals.Incorrect, terror birds actually got to north america before the landbridge formed and coexisted with mammalian carnivores just fine. Titanis made it to Florida and Texas by then. So it probably was not competition that made them extinct.Also they still coexisted with mammalian predators in South America, Sparassodonts were a thing and Sebecids came later on as well.They didn't have a comparatively powerful bite, but at the same time plenty of assumed big game hunters don't. Smilodon and allosaurus have quite weak skulls that would suggest they'd be opted away from hunting large animals. However they make due by cutting instead of breaking. Terror birds similarly have latterally flattened skulls and sharp beaks that were fused to be stronger, its not unrealistic to imagine they could hunt larger animals. Hell, most panthers don't ever kill with their bite, usually suffocating and restraining prey. Only exception is the jaguar of course. That and I could easily imagine their kicks being deadly, with some even having sickle claws like dromaeosaurs.
>>4787746I should specify I didn't mean that sebecids are mammalian carnivores.
>>4787746Mammals still probably fucked them because they were likely dumb ground nesters that breed slow.
>>4787760Plenty of amniotes lay their eggs on the ground and are just fine, some of which don't even do parental care. Also south america probably had plenty of egg thieves so it'd be weird if they never adapted to that in their 50 million year evolution.and, you could argue they're "still around" as seriemas are a thing and exhibit a similar niche just at a much smaller level.Also I think its really only possible compare Titanis to other placental carnivores since it obviously coexisted with them, in that regard, the only things really larger than it (around 300+ KG) and were predators were Arctodus, which probably didn't compete with it since it was a bear.It massively outsized canids and machairodonts it coexisted with, Smilodon gracilis which it coexisted with was only about 80-90 KG
>>4787415>The North and South American interchange resulted in these birds being bullied and displaced by chad mammalsthat's a weird way to say that they'd gone extinct in South America for some time by the time of the interchange and that they continued to persist in North America for a Million years until climate change finally fucked them.>>4787760just like mammals fucked ostriches and Emus right?fucking retard
>>4787746>usually suffocating and restraining preySomething terror birds can't do with their lack of teeth and inability to wrestle like cats. Allosaurus and Smilodons also had teeth which helped in ripping flesh and holding down prey. Smilodons also most likely used their forelimbs to take down prey for example. I don't doubt terror birds have powerful kicks but that isn't an effective weapon if you want to take down large prey like bovines, and hell even boars. Despite having stronger talons, the talons of the terror birds are, ironically enough, less well suited as weapons for dispatching large prey when compared to the dromeosaurs’ sickle-claw because they're shorter though more durable.
>>4787790Yes, even lightweight cheetahs are capable of fucking up Ostriches, which are heavier than most terror birds.
>>4787774>Also I think its really only possible compare Titanis to other placental carnivores since it obviously coexisted with them, in that regard, the only things really larger than it (around 300+ KG) and were predators were Arctodus, which probably didn't compete with it since it was a bear.But an Arctodus would absolutely fuck up a Titanis if they were to fight. If a Titanis and Arctodus come across a carcass at the same time, who'd you think would flee?
>>4787845They also get scared off by vultures all the time.
>>4787845damn, I had no idea cheetahs had driven Ostriches to extinction.Thank you for continuing to confirm that you are a fucking retard.
>>4787601If this is what they actually looked like then they’d be a force to be reckoned with
>>4787847Oh absolutely an Arctodus would fuck up Titanis if it came to that, but I was trying to say that Arctodus is a bear and most research I've seen seems to place it as an omnivore, so they're not competing for the same food source and thus Titanis probably doesn't compete with Arctodus.
>>4787844Course it probably wasn't suffocating prey, but that is probably not how it hunted, their beaks were tightly fused and hooked towards the end so they were likely for slashing/cutting and while their bite itself was probably not generating a ton of force on its own, a thing not talked about is that a lot of the force from an animal's bite actually does come from the neck and not just the jaws. Phorusrhacids did indeed have powerful necks and I could absolutely see a peck or a slash from one being a serious injury or cause a lot of blood loss to a prey animal (Not breaking the skulls and into the braincases of animals though, that shit is retarded)Also, dromaeosaur claws were almost certainly built for gripping and not for slashing/cutting so idk if they are apt comparisons (Although I don't know if anyone has looked into the kicks for phorusrhacids).Also this is treading on covered ground, but Titanis' existence alone questions the idea that they couldn't compete or were not successful.The GABI is believed to have occurred 2-3 million years ago, and Titanis was exclusively a North American species that appears in the fossil record 5 million years, before it happened. Smilodon didn't even get bigger until after Titanis kicked the bucket.It's like the idea that megalodon went extinct due to competition with livyatan, when we know that livyatan actually died out before megalodon did.
>>47880115 million years ago, not 5 mil before the GABI
>>4788011Thing is, the Titanis's method of killing just isn't as effective as taking down large prey the same way cats, bears, and dogs can. I never claimed or believed that the terror birds couldn't coexist with mammal predators, just that they aren't as good as taking down large prey as apex mammals can. The same way snakes can coexist with tigers but can't really take down a bull the same way a tiger can. Its killing implements just isn't as well suited.
>>4788011I don't see them really being diffent than modern predatory bird method. Grab it thrash it about until something breaks or bludgeon it with the ground until it's incapacitated. Then probably tug pieces off like vultures or eagles. Probably prioritizing young over full growns anyway like most predators.
>>4787575That meme allows birds to live peacefully in our cities and reap all the advantages that come with it.
I think water was a limiting factor. I can't imagine it drinking out of a puddle with that huge ass head.
>>4788101They were effective enough to survive for 50+ million years you fucking moron.
>>4788101Yeah but how do you know that? There's not really any modern analogs to terror birds that use their same hunting methods. I mean terror birds coexisted and almost certainly hunted meridiungulates for millions of years in south america, and those guys had very similar body plans to old world ungulates, and this is without mentioning glyptodons, pampatheres, and ground sloths.Not to mention that terror birds weren't wildly unbalanced goofballs that constantly fall over themselves like you're insinuating. They couldn't use the raptor prey restraint in the same way as dromeosaur sure, but they have extremely tress resistant talons, second digits with extended sickle claws, and fairly well developed wings and tail feathers for balance. Hell, even seriemas which are a far cry from terror birds in musculature use their claws to restrain prey on the ground or knock prey over. Not to mention the fact that seriemas, while not social, still oftentimes live in small family groups and hunt together, no reason to believe some terror birds weren't similar.https://bioone.org/journals/journal-of-the-arizona-nevada-academy-of-science/volume-50/issue-1/036.050.0103/Observation-of-Claw-Use-and-Feeding-Behavior-of-the-Red/10.2181/036.050.0103.short
