In prehistoric Australia, 'demon ducks of doom' lay melon-sized eggs

 
Even devil ducks have predators. At this location, the extinct lizard Megalania is chasing after the vast "devil duck of doom" (Genyornis newtoni), which is fleeing its nest (Varanus priscus). Representatives of both species were found in Australia around 50,000 years ago.
 
An ancient eggshell belonging to a gigantic, extinct terrestrial bird with a demonic nickname has been a mystery for scientists for the past 41 years, but they have finally solved the case.
 
Approximately 50,000 years ago, in 1981, researchers in Australia found the charred remains of several eggs used by prehistoric humans for cooking over multiple fires. Emus were the source of at least some of the eggs. However, some larger-than-average specimens belonged to a second, unidentified bird. Scientists disagreed on the classification of the enormous bird for several years. But because of the age and size of the eggs, over time, two potential candidates emerged: the Program, which is a group of large birds that are similar to turkeys, and the Genyornis, which are sometimes referred to as "demon ducks of doom" because of their enormous size and evolutionary relationship to the smaller waterfowl.
 
A new investigation utilizing cutting-edge technology for protein sequencing and artificial intelligence has ended the controversy once and for all. The findings, published on May 24 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, conclusively verify the identity of the eggs as belonging to Genyornis newtoni, the only remaining "thunder bird" in Australia.
 
The Genyornis newtoni was a fearsome-looking beast. According to the Australian Museum, it had a wingspan of nearly 6.5 feet (2 meters) and weighed up to 530 pounds (240 kilograms) due to its beak, bones, and feather-clad muscle weight. Its height exceeded 2 meters. An archaeologist at the University of Turin in Italy who studies bones and other organic materials told Live Science in an email, "I can imagine that having this mega duck looking down at one should be fairly unnerving!" the lead study author, Beatrice Demarchi, said. "I can imagine that having this mega duck looking down at one should be fairly unnerving."
 
Each egg laid by one of these enormous ducks weighed approximately 3.5 pounds (1.6 kilograms) and was roughly melon-sized. This was entirely befitting, given the ducks' monstrous size. If the indigenous inhabitants of Australia had been able to take them from the giant birds' nests securely, the enormous eggs laid by the Genyornis would have been an excellent supply of protein for them. According to the Natural History Museum in London, experts today have theorized that the human demand for eggs and the melons' size may have contributed to the demise of the Genyornis species.
 
According to Demarchi, "Small and banal items such as eggshells can reveal a lot about what the environment looked like." This may not be as eye-catching as a fossilized skull, but "small and ordinary things such as eggshells can reveal a lot about what the environment looked like." Shell fragments that were discovered in the 1980s at two sites in Australia were re-examined by researchers, but this time they used a different method called protein sequencing. This was done because they were curious about the ancient environment.
 
When scientists attempt to determine a given species' identity, DNA sequencing is typically chosen over protein sequencing. Because proteins do not alter as rapidly or randomly as DNA does, it is more difficult to identify the genetic signatures of proteins. However, according to Demarchi, "however, they last around 10 times longer than DNA," which indicates that there may be adequate proteins maintained in older material in which a significant portion of the DNA has dissolved over time. Because of factors such as the passage of time and the temperature at which the eggshell fragments had been buried (after having been heated over an open flame), most of the DNA in the egg samples had been too damaged to be used. On the other hand, the proteins were still in a satisfactory state overall.
 
Following the sequencing of these chemicals and the identification of the genes that would have been responsible for their production, the researchers made use of a specialized algorithm to compare their findings to the genomes of over 350 different living species of birds. Josefin Stiller, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and a co-author of the study, said in a statement that the findings demonstrated that the eggs were not laid by a group of birds called megapodes that are similar to chickens and therefore did not belong to the Progura genus. The statement was made in response to the findings of the study.
 
This type of research provides beneficial insights into people's impact on the natural world. It demonstrates that the environments in which our ancestors lived and the foods that they consumed may have been factors that led to the extinction of particular species. Even if the so-called devil ducks do not exist any longer, the lessons we were able to learn from our contacts with them in the past continue to reverberate. According to Demarchi, she and her coworkers are planning to carry on with their research in the hopes of "looking at other huge birds from the past and working out their interactions with people at different moments in time."

Article source : https://www.livescience.com/demon-duck-of-doom-eggs

Image source   : https://pixabay.com/id/photos/kabut-burung-margasatwa-lanskap-4537166/

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