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A reconstruction image of the world's largest ever flying bird AP Photo/Bruce Museum, Liz Bradford

Largest flying bird EVER (with a wingspan of 6.4 metres) found at airport

Its wings were so big that it wouldn’t have been able to get airborne easily.

FOSSILISED BIRD BONES uncovered in the US state of South Carolina represent the largest flying bird in history, with a wingspan of 6.4 metres (21 feet), according to a new study.

The Pelagornis sandersi’s wings were twice as long as the biggest modern-day seabird, the royal albatross, said the research in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Coupled with its long beak and sharp bony teeth, the enormous wings likely helped the bird master long periods of gliding over water in search of seafood some 25 to 28 million years ago.

However, the bird might have needed some help getting airborne, given that its wings were simply too long to flap easily from the ground.

Scientists believe it may have made a running start downhill, or used air gusts — much like a hang glider — to make its way aloft.

Huge Wingspan AP Photo / Bruce Museum, Liz Bradford AP Photo / Bruce Museum, Liz Bradford / Bruce Museum, Liz Bradford

Once in the air, study author Dan Ksepka of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in Durham, North Carolina, said the bird could probably soar for miles without ever flapping its wings.

“That’s important in the ocean, where food is patchy,” Ksepka said.

P. sandersi lived after the dinosaurs became extinct but before the first humans are known to have inhabited North America.

The bird’s wing and leg bones along with its complete skull were first discovered in 1983 near Charleston, South Carolina, during excavation work for a new international airport.

“The upper wing bone alone was longer than my arm,” said Ksepka, recalling that a backhoe was called in to help unearth the bones.

The bone measurements suggest that the bird’s wingspan was between 6.06 and 7.38 meters (19.9 to 24.2 feet), according to the PNAS article.

The previous size record holder was an extinct, six-million-year-old bird found in Argentina, named Argentavis magnificens. Its wingspan was estimated at about 21 feet.

The fossils of the P. sandersi shed light on the flying ability of a remarkable bird, but also raise new questions about the group of bony toothed seabirds known as pelagornithids, which disappeared some 2.5 million years ago.

These ancient birds were “remarkably efficient fliers” that were found across all seven continents, making “the cause of their ultimate extinction all of the more mysterious,” said the study.

- © AFP, 2014

MORE IN SCIENCE: 

Read: ‘Lost’ Amazon Indians make first contact with outside world > 

Opinion: Is imagination more important than knowledge? > 

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    Mute Numinous20111
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    Jan 29th 2025, 7:31 AM

    I don’t mean this in bad taste, but honestly those astronauts are in a better place at the moment. Hope they get back safely.

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    Mute Setanta O'Toole
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    Jan 29th 2025, 7:35 AM

    @Numinous20111: they will probably have to swear a loyalty oath under extreme duress in MAGA space helmets before he lets them down.

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    Mute Numinous20111
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    Jan 29th 2025, 7:39 AM

    @Setanta O’Toole: I’d expect Trump & Musk to milk the publicity of a safe return. It takes genuine courage to get launched in a rocket and stay on an orbiting station. Now that courage is tested even further by the unreliability of a retrieval flight. And both will probably need physical therapy to cope with normal gravity again.

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    Mute Mick O'K
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    Jan 29th 2025, 8:08 AM

    @Numinous20111: can you not for just a second put the TDS to one side and spare a thought for two people stranded in space. You’re as bad as the multi account trolls on this site

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    Mute Joe Beirne
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    Jan 29th 2025, 8:25 AM

    @Harry Paisley: alright Ian,

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    Mute Eric Gaffney
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    Jan 29th 2025, 8:46 AM

    @Numinous20111: No they’re not.

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    Mute Brian
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    Jan 29th 2025, 9:15 AM

    @Mick O’K: Anyone using the made up acronym TDS is a troll or a child.. most probably both.

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    Mute John O Reilly
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    Jan 29th 2025, 9:25 AM

    @Harry Paisley: hopefully all your relatives abroad will be sent home too

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    Mute Setanta O'Toole
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    Jan 29th 2025, 9:41 AM

    @Numinous20111: I hope that British Diver who was involved in the rescue in Thailand doesn’t use this rescue as an opportunity to return a similar baseless insult to Elon. That wouldn’t be hilarious at all.

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    Mute Mick O'K
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    Jan 29th 2025, 10:48 AM

    @Brian: thanks for you input as ever pal

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    Mute Dermot Blaine
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    Jan 29th 2025, 12:15 PM

    @Mick O’K: the two do not consider themselselves stranded, they’re happy enough being up there, in fact.

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    Mute Mick O'K
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    Jan 29th 2025, 12:53 PM

    @Dermot Blaine: “Veteran astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams arrived at the ISS in June aboard Boeing’s Starliner, and were due to spend only eight days on the orbiting laboratory, but technical problems on the spacecraft prompted NASA to change plans.” Happy or not they’re stranded

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    Mute Dermot Blaine
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    Jan 29th 2025, 2:59 PM

    @Mick O’K: what I said is they don’t consider themselves to be stranded.

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    Mute Jack Dermody
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    Jan 29th 2025, 3:18 PM

    @Mick O’K: Le’s be clear… This is a publicity stunt which Trump is giving a horse load of money for Musk to perform.

    They are far from stranded… they are in the ISS with 8 others… Yes they have been up there for a bit…

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    Mute Ulick
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    Jan 29th 2025, 4:50 PM

    @Numinous20111: Really, you should go.

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    Mute Ulick
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    Jan 29th 2025, 4:51 PM

    @Setanta O’Toole: TDS.

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    Mute Setanta O'Toole
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    Jan 29th 2025, 9:42 PM

    @Ulick: and proud. Say hello to all the rest of the McGee clan for me.

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    Mute Bob Cobban
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    Jan 29th 2025, 7:37 AM

    Hope they get back safely and have all their correct paperwork with them. Otherwise, they might get deported back.

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    Mute Stanley Marsh
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    Jan 29th 2025, 10:05 AM

    @Bob Cobban: Wasn’t it always the plan to bring them back around March which from an end of January perspective sounds very similar to “as soon as possible”.

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    Mute John Darker
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    Jan 29th 2025, 9:38 AM

    Lol,
    You just have to laugh at the last paragraph the way the wording is framed like the Russian craft was somehow inferior…
    But what actually happened was ….Rubio, Prokopyev and Petelin arrived on the ISS aboard a Soyuz capsule on Sept. 21, 2022. They were due to return to Earth on March 28 but had to remain in space after their spacecraft was hit by a piece of space junk or meteoroid in December 2022, which caused an uncontrollable radiator leak. The unrepairable capsule was returned to Earth and was replaced by another uncrewed capsule in February, which the trio used to return home.

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    Mute Tezmond McVicar
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    Jan 29th 2025, 9:43 AM

    @John Darker: correct!

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    Mute Iano C
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    Jan 29th 2025, 8:03 AM

    How is Musk having a dig at Biden? Isn’t it Musk who’s the one that can get them?

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    Mute Damien Leahy
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    Jan 29th 2025, 9:57 AM

    @Iano C: spacex is private, nasa is not. Fairly simple.

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    Mute David Jordan
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    Jan 29th 2025, 11:27 AM

    @Damien Leahy: They were supposed to be brought back by a different private company, Boeing, but Boeing’s Starliner capsule is beset by problems (valves on thrusters this time). So rather than return to Earth in the potentially unsafe Starliner capsule, it left the space station without the two astronauts leaving them stranded.

    NASA is under funded, so now relies heavily on private companies to get to and from space. NASA lacks the funds to design and build their own human rated space capsules (the Orion capsule for SLS is being built by Lockheed Martin).

    Of course, you can say, but private companies can fill the gap, but as we have seen, Boeing is making garbage and SpaceX could fold if Starship ends up (as many think) a hair brained dead end money pit.

    Where does that leave NASA if that happened? Well, giving them the funding they need and deserve will not fix things, as their best engineers and expertise are now gone. They’d have to build that back up again, that is time-consuming and expensive, and it’s why SLS is costing so much, as they lack in house expertise and outsourced a lot of the development to private companied (Lockheed Martin, Boeing) who know how to milk the system.

    These by the way are protected by career Senators who like the cash and jobs this brings to their states, where facilities are based, which also influences NASA’s design decisions e.g. it’s why SLS retained old c. 25-year-old Space Shuttle engines (RS-25) made by Rocketdyne (now Aerojet Rocketdyne) in Alabama, rather than someone other company or NASA developing its own new rocket engines. For example engine E2045 first flew in 2002 on Atlantis, and was upgraded and overhauled for SLS, costing perhaps more than to just design and make an entirely new engine.

    https://www.bcatoday.org/alabama-senators-supported-alabama-based-rocket-launch-vehicles/

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    Mute Jacintha Dumbrell
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    Jan 29th 2025, 7:45 AM

    Draining the swamp, LOLZ!

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    Mute Hugh Lynch
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    Jan 29th 2025, 11:57 AM

    Hope they have their passports ready on touchdown

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    Mute scott cooper
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    Jan 29th 2025, 2:37 PM

    Not sure I’d trust the SpaceX rockets yet. Doesn’t seem like he’s cracked it, yet

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    Mute William Jennings
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    Jan 29th 2025, 1:50 PM

    I really hope SpaceX replaces NASA eventually as the main space contractor. SpaceX is able to launch rockets into space for only $1 billion. NASA’s launches now take 12 years to build and plan for and $36 billion to complete. SpaceX can get a rocket up into space for 1/36th of the cost and in half the time because Elon Musk is spending his own money to complete it. In the 55 years since NASA send the first man up to the moon, they’ve made little progress in innovation and cost cutting. They pay contractor development costs and then add 10% profit. The more things cost, the bigger the contractor profit. So contractors had little incentive to innovate. SpaceX, on the other hand, has created new technology like reusable rocket boosters that have transformed space exploration.

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    Mute Derek O Gorman
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    Jan 29th 2025, 1:38 PM

    Trump and musk will engineer the rescue together I bet.

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    Mute Ulick
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    Jan 29th 2025, 4:51 PM

    Ireland needs a politician with stones like Trump.

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    Mute Brian D'Arcy
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    Jan 29th 2025, 8:33 PM

    @Ulick: Move to the USA so, no one is forcing you to stay here.

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    Mute Setanta O'Toole
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    Jan 30th 2025, 8:38 AM

    @Ulick: miniscule and going down past their knees?

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