The Duck of Death
Posted on 06/05/2022 9:07:14 PM PDT by BenLurkin
“Genyornis was two meters tall and 200 kilos. We don’t know exactly what it would have looked like because it’s been dead for a while and there are few skeletal remains available. It was certainly a flightless bird with some characteristics shared with ostriches, like the big chest and small wings, but it would have looked more like a big goose or duck,”
The evidence that humans were eating these large eggs comes from burnt eggshells found among the remains of ancient cultures. Scientists studying these sites find two different types of eggshells, one of which comes from emus and another which was unknown. Looking at the archaeological record, we find that the eggshells start being burned right around the same time people first arrived in Australia. This supports the notion that they were cooking and eating them as they had done with other large, flightless birds in Africa, India, and Eurasia.
“Genyornis was a really big bird. If you look at its femur, it’s huge. So, you would expect the egg to be as big and as thick as an ostrich, but ostrich eggs are significantly thicker. The whole argument was based on morphological traits of these eggshells, so the idea came up that perhaps it was an egg from an extinct megapode,”
“If you compare the proteins from a bunch of living birds, including the megapodes, you can sort of build a tree that’s good at separating out the major groups. All of the ostriches went on one side, all the land fowl go on another side, and then there’s the waterfowl. When we extracted proteins from the eggshell, we found that it never falls within the chicken and megapode group,”
(Excerpt) Read more at syfy.com ...
The Duck of Death
Tastes like chicken. Or ostrich.
Future Undead Thread?
So, could they tell what they seasoned the omelets with?
jalapenos, habaneros, and some sharp cheddar cheese?
I have a suspicion that if dinosaurs were magically brought back that we would discover that they tasted like delicious chicken and then hunt them to extinction. A 10 year-old girl with a 50 cal rifle could take out a T-Rex with ease.
Reminds me of a certain scene from the movie “Caveman”.😏
Doom Duck Eggs and Spam.
Eggs Denosivan
Heck yeah. Animal Kingdom Weirdness!
Another undead thread candidate...
I like it. Summer’s coming, time to ramp up the absurdity quotient.
I once made an omelet from an ostrich egg. Caused me to stick my head in the sand for a bit. Never again.
Yep. A .416 Remington Mag will kill Godzilla or anything that every lived!
When the Mora first arrived in New Zealand there were bigger birds than that living there. NOW extinct.
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