What is Dromornis?
Q: What is Dromornis?
A: Dromornis is a genus of fossil flightless birds that lived in Australia from the late Miocene to the early Pliocene.
Q: How large was Dromornis stirtoni?
A: Dromornis stirtoni was three metres (10 feet) tall and weighed up to half a ton (500 kilos).
Q: What did it look like?
A: It looked like a giant emu, but it was more closely related to geese. It had a long neck and stub-like wings, so it was flightless. Its legs were powerful, but it was not a fast runner. The bird's beak was large and immensely powerful.
Q: What kind of environment did they live in?
A: They inhabited subtropical open woodland in Australia during the late Miocene with forests and permanent water supply, although the climate was unpredictable.
Q: When did they exist?
A: They existed from 15 million years ago until less than 30,000 years ago.
Q: How did Australasia become isolated from other continents?
A: Australasia became isolated when its last connection with Antarctica broke about 40 million years ago as Gondwana started to break up in the Mesozoic era.
Q: What type of lifestyle did Dromornis have?
A: Its life style is not certain, though some believe it may have been partly carnivorous due to its size of beak suggesting carnivorous behavior.
