"Pelagornis sandersi could have travelled for extreme distances while crossing ocean waters in search of prey. That's important in the ocean where food is patchy," said Dan Ksepka, formerly of the US National Evolutionary Synthesis Centre in Durham, North Carolina and now curator of science at the Bruce Museum in Greenwich, Connecticut.
A comparative wingspan line drawing of the world's largest-ever flying bird, Pelagornis sandersi. At bottom left is a California condor, and at bottom right is a Royal albatross.
The bird's bony, teeth-like projections and other anatomical details of its well preserved skeleton indicate that it belonged to the Pelagornithidae: an extinct group of giant seabird that lived during this period 25 million years ago, long after the dinosaurs had died out but long before the rise of humans.
"Pelagornithids were like creatures out of a fantasy novel. There is simply nothing like them around today....The upper wing bone alone was longer than my arm," Dr Ksepka said.
Pelagornis may have lived much like modern day albatrosses, soaring high into the sky and riding on air currents for long periods without flapping their wings to preserve energy, occasionally swooping down to the sea surface to feed on soft-bodied prey.
Pelagornithids were found all over the world and survived for tens of millions of years before becoming extinct in the Pliocene about three million years ago: their sudden disappearance remains a mystery.
The latest study naming and describing Pelagornis sandersi is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The species may eventually prove to have had the longest wingspan in the 140 million year history of the bird, being at the theoretical upper size limits for powered flight.
The species was named after Albert Sanders, the Charleston Museum curator who led the fossil's excavation.
- Independent