An extinct giant bird to greet visitors when the Yale Peabody Museum reopens

Castornis bones have been found in North America, Europe and Asia, Hanson said, and the bird’s range stretches across the Northern Hemisphere.

Long thought to be a „terrible bird” of prey, recent findings show castornis ate a lot of seeds and plant material, says Hanson. This species belongs to a group of birds called Galloncerae, which includes ducks, geese, chickens and turkeys.

Scientists believe the Castornis birds are about 7 or 8 feet tall and weigh about 400 pounds, Hanson said, adding that there is some variation in height.

According to museum staff, Peabody’s gastornis is 8 feet tall, based on a 24-inch gastornis tibia in Peabody’s collection.

The model was created by Blue Rhino Studios, a Minnesota-based company that supplies sculpted creatures ranging from giant dinosaurs to tiny lizards to companies around the world, according to cofounder Tim Quady.

In designing Castornis model, The studio’s lead sculptor, Jim Burt, consulted with a team of paleontologists and museum staff.

According to Kylen Rogers, associate director of exhibits for Peabody, the bird is probably the most scientifically known Castornis specimen in the world.

To speak to a reporter, Burt, who took a break from painting Tyrannosaurus rex, said his first step in creating Castornis was making a small clay model of the bird, which was later criticized for massing.

Once everyone is happy with the result, „we scan the model and scale it to the proportions it would be in real life,” Burt said.

Life-size Castornis are CNC extruded from foam, he said. (CNC routing is a process that uses a computer-controlled machine to carve objects.)

After the team at Blue Rhino Studios put the hard shell on the foam, the model can be painted with feathers. That move brought another challenge: Burt had to find a way to source thousands of feathers for the creature’s feathers, he said.

„There are all kinds of different types of feathers that are all manipulated to look a certain way, so when you put it all together there’s harmony,” Burt said. „You try to get them from any source.”

Because the sculptor needs so many feathers, he buys suppliers, he said.

„It’s hard to find multiple feathers from one source,” Burt said. „I hunted everywhere.”

The primary type of feathers used for Peabody’s gastornis came from rheas, according to Burt, who said their feathers may be the closest modern analogs to the feathers of the extinct bird.

Hanson says that conclusion is based on a fossilized feather found in Wyoming. Scientists cannot say for sure that it belongs to Castornis, They didn’t know of any birds of that size living in Wyoming at the time, he said.

Rhea feathers have the same size and texture as a fossil feather, Hanson said.

Other conversations during the design process included everything from the proper taper of Castornis’ toes to a debate over whether its feet should have a „chicken-oid” or „duck-oid” shape, said Susan Butts, Peabody’s director of collections and research.

Hanson instructed the team to add padding to the model’s legs because, like an elephant, a bird might need padding to support its weight. Larger birds, such as ostriches, have fleshy pads under their toes, he said.

As for the question of chicken or duck, Hanson said, „There are different patterns of scales on the feet and legs between different birds.” „We were discussing which way we wanted to go with this.”

In the end, he believes the team chose a shape that most closely resembles the shape found in ducks or geese.

„The current hypothesis is that Castornis is more related to ducks and geese than to chickens, quail, and so on,” Hanson said. „There is some debate about that.”

Recent scientific discoveries have changed the thinking surrounding the bird’s lifestyle. In older parables, Castornis often depicts horses hunting.

But due to several factors, the creature is now believed to have been a herbivore. If you consider the shape of the bird, according to Hanson, it’s not built well for running.

Castornis lacked features common in today’s birds of prey, such as large talons, a hooked beak and large, forward-facing eyes, Hanson said. He said Castornis’ eyes were small and far apart.

What, then, is the purpose of Casternice’s bulky beak? This helps the bird’s seeds explode.

Thanks to the markings on Castornis’ jaw, the researchers determined that the bird had large jaw muscles and was able to eat hard-shelled foods, Butz said.

The final piece of the Casternis puzzle came in the 2010s, when scientists analyzed the isotopic composition of its bones, Hanson said.

The analyzes „indicate that it doesn’t eat any animal products, it primarily eats plant material,” Hanson said.

On Thursday, museum staff introduced visitors to Peabody’s Castornis, Rogers, associate director of exhibits, propped a coconut inside its open beak.

„It’s part of our storytelling strategy,” he said. Although the bird looks scary, the coconut is supposed to tell visitors, „It’s not here to eat you.”

Museum curators plan to station Castornis inside the entrance to the hall known as the World of Change.

A world of change is at hand Burke Hall of DinosaursAnd the doorway between the rooms represents mass destruction.

„This threshold is going to represent the asteroid impact that killed all the big dinosaurs,” Rogers said. In a world of change, „a few million years after an asteroid impact, life is reimagined.”

As visitors exit the dinosaur hall, they will see the head of Castornis looking up at them and beckoning them to the next room.