This is Bird Note.

Swans like this hoop or swan are impressive animals.

They're among the largest flying birds around today.

But 11.5 million years ago, two extinct species from Japan took an even more epic direction.

Like today's swans, Anika Sigmna Hajime and Anika Sina Yoshiensis were quite large, but

unlike their modern relatives, these birds live most of their lives out at sea,

and their fossils reveal remarkable adaptations to this unusual lifestyle.

They had wide, spatula-shaped beaks, somewhat like modern shoveler ducks.

The dense bones of their wide hips let them remain stable on choppy waters, while filtering

plankton from the sea surface with

their oversized heads. Their wings weren't built for flight, but had the musculature and range

of motion to suggest they weren't useless. In combination with the flexible tail, they could form

a cradle for carrying chicks on their back, which some swans still do now with their young.

The remarkable anatomy of Anika Sina reveals a creature uniquely adapted to thrive in an

environment quite unlike what you'd expect for a swan. To quote the scientists who named it in a

2022 study, in a sense, it is the ultimate bird that ever existed.

For Bird, I'm Adee Ben-Sla-Hoodine.