Titanis

["Patrick Norton" <ptnorton@email.msn.com>]

I recently received a copy of Robert Chandler's  description of the arm and
hand of the Pleistocene "terror bird" _Titanis walleri_ (Bulletin of the
Florida Museum of Natural History, v 36, no 6, 1994).  Unlike other large
flightless birds, T. walleri (about 6 feet tall)  had long, strong arms
(about 3 feet long) with robust and solid bones and a carpometacarpus
modified in a way that prevented it from folding under the ulna as in other
birds.  Chandler concludes that it had to hold its hands out in front of its
body, palms inward.  It had also modified the facet of metacarpal I into a
ball joint; something unique in birds.  Chandler speculates that this would
have provided the animal with a very movable and strong digit I that, if
equipped with a claw, could have been used to manipulate and subdue prey.

It's interesting to think about a 6 foot bipedal feathered predator with
grasping hands running around in Florida within the last couple million
years.