Episode 240 - Terror Birds

The Common Descent Podcast

Common Descent

Science, Natural Sciences, Education, Earth Sciences, Science:natural Sciences

4.8 • 764 Ratings

🗓️ 29 March 2026

⏱️ 162 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For most of the Cenozoic Era, South America was home to an incredible group of predatory birds called phorusrhacids, which included some of the largest carnivorous birds of all time. With their giant axe-like beaks and powerful clawed legs, these giants have gained the nickname “terror birds.” This episode, we explore what makes these birds unique, how they varied across their diversity, and what exactly they were doing with all those terrifying tools. In the news: a bitten plesiosaur, wildflower adaptation, a new croc, and dinosaur parents. Time markers:Intro & Announcements: 00:00:00News: 00:06:25Main discussion, Part 1: 00:51:30Main discussion, Part 2: 01:29:30Patron question: 02:30:05 Some helpful links mentioned in the Announcements:The Trevor Project: https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ The National Immigrant Justice Center: https://immigrantjustice.org/ Pal Humanity: https://chuffed.org/project/122818-support-north-gaza-rebuilding-lives-restoring-hope-with-pal-humanity?utm_source=ig&utm_medium=social&utm_content=link_in_bio Check out our website for this episode’s blog post and more: http://commondescentpodcast.com/ Join us on Patreon to support the podcast and enjoy bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/commondescentpodcast Got a topic you want to hear about? Submit your episode request here: https://commondescentpodcast.com/request-a-topic/ Lots more ways to connect with us: https://linktr.ee/common_descent The Intro and Outro music is “On the Origin of Species” by Protodome. More music like this at http://ocremix.org Musical Interludes are "Professor Umlaut" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to the Common Descent Podcast.
0:19.0	Hello, Will. Hello, David.
0:21.6	Hello, listeners, and welcome to Common Descent.
0:24.5	This is episode 240, and our topic for today is Terrorbirds.
0:30.7	Be afraid.
0:32.0	This is probably the most famous group of extinct birds outside.
0:37.1	I guess Dodoes are pretty famous. Terrorbirds are a group of extinct birds outside of I guess dodoes are pretty famous
0:38.7	terror birds are a group of birds uh the family forest rassaday which include giant predatory
0:47.2	ancient birds of the america's very very cool group we have brought them up a number of times
0:53.0	on the podcast before,
0:58.8	but this time we will be dedicating an entire episode discussion to them.
0:59.7	Yes.
1:03.8	We will talk about some of their discovery history.
1:06.2	We'll talk about what features make them distinct. We'll talk about their diversity and what we understand about how they lived.
1:11.9	How much terror did they actually inflict upon the world around them?
1:17.0	Probably a lot.
1:18.2	Probably, yeah, probably a bunch.
1:20.2	Probably a lot, especially if you were a little critter.
1:23.8	Yeah, when you said very big predatory birds, and when we say very big, we mean extremely very big and extremely predatory.
1:31.1	Yes, these are predatory birds the size of ostriches and bigger.
1:37.9	Yeah.
1:39.0	Huge, flightless.
	...

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