The level of oxygen was much higher in the past. I’m not sure about at that exact time period, but higher oxygen levels is what allowed insects to get so huge in previous eras, and conversely it is why (by the grace of God) arachnids like spiders will never get above a certain size today.
yes higher oxygen, if a dinosaur was real and it fell or something it would break all of its bones today …back then that wouldn’t have happened.
I think you guys are missing how big 160-180 is for a bird. You have to understand that they are built to be light. a 50 pound bird is going to be MUCH larger and MUCH more powerful than a 50 pound dog or other land animal. Birds are on a completely different weight scale.
For instance golden eagles, who only get up to 15-16 pounds, will hunt prey as large as goats and deer:
Now think about an bird 10 times the size of the golden eagle. I can’t even imagine the power in a 180 pound bird.
^ Holy motherfucking shit.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
^ Holy motherfucking shit.[/quote]
I’ve been a bird lover/owner most of my life. Even birds the size of larger parrots, like a macaw (that are only 2 or 3 pounds) are bad ass. They have an insane amount of power and strength for their size, much less their weight.
[quote]rrjc5488 wrote:
^ Holy motherfucking shit.[/quote]
x2
I remember in one of those books I was reading in elementary school that had a picture of a eagle striking an apple, with the caption comparing the strike of an eagle to some proportion of a shot of a rifle (or maybe I’m completely confused again… my memory isn’t so good)
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I think you guys are missing how big 160-180 is for a bird. You have to understand that they are built to be light. a 50 pound bird is going to be MUCH larger and MUCH more powerful than a 50 pound dog or other land animal. Birds are on a completely different weight scale.
For instance golden eagles, who only get up to 15-16 pounds, will hunt prey as large as goats and deer:
Now think about an bird 10 times the size of the golden eagle. I can’t even imagine the power in a 180 pound bird.[/quote]
holy shit! i thought the video was going to be fake or a joke. that thing would rip your face off.
on a related note, last year my brother and i watched this huge hawk eating what looked like a fox up in a tree, 20 feet from where we were eating breakfast. it’s prey looked twice its size. it would rip off some flesh, and then turn its head and stare at us for about 5 seconds and then continue. it had this huge hooked beak and it freaked the shit out of us.
best part was my brother leaned forward and was trying to see what it was eating and i jabbed his ribs and hissed. he shit himself.
nice video.
Al Gore says there is more CO2 now than ever, so it must be true. Don’t you guys listen to the NEWS???
TNT
Wasn’t Oxygen in greater proportion in the atmosphere 400 million years ago? In the Devonian and Ordocanian period?
But re: birds, wow
there were ups and downs in oxygen levels
http://essayweb.net/geology/timeline/images/oxygen_levels.png
It’s GARGANTUAN!
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I think you guys are missing how big 160-180 is for a bird. You have to understand that they are built to be light. a 50 pound bird is going to be MUCH larger and MUCH more powerful than a 50 pound dog or other land animal. Birds are on a completely different weight scale.
For instance golden eagles, who only get up to 15-16 pounds, will hunt prey as large as goats and deer:
Now think about an bird 10 times the size of the golden eagle. I can’t even imagine the power in a 180 pound bird.[/quote]
This is up there in my list of coolest vids ever seen.
[quote]coolnatedawg wrote:
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I think you guys are missing how big 160-180 is for a bird. You have to understand that they are built to be light. a 50 pound bird is going to be MUCH larger and MUCH more powerful than a 50 pound dog or other land animal. Birds are on a completely different weight scale.
For instance golden eagles, who only get up to 15-16 pounds, will hunt prey as large as goats and deer:
Now think about an bird 10 times the size of the golden eagle. I can’t even imagine the power in a 180 pound bird.[/quote]
This is up there in my list of coolest vids ever seen.
[/quote]
I see your mouse sized prey and raise you a fuckin sheep!
You know you can train these birds like hunting dogs,right? Th emongols have been doing it for awhile. Awesome shit.
[quote]Bambi wrote:
Wasn’t Oxygen in greater proportion in the atmosphere 400 million years ago? In the Devonian and Ordocanian period?
But re: birds, wow[/quote]
Yes, the partial pressure of oxygen was higher then than now – meaning, there was more of it.
This bird however was dated to only 6 million years ago.
I wasn’t able to find anything on the amount of oxygen then, but the partial pressure of CO2 was about the same then as now, so as a guess the amount of oxygen was likely not remarkably different. But perhaps it might have been somewhat different. Don’t know.
The relative amount of oxygen might be relevant to the breathing of a large bird of prey, but mightn’t have much to do with the air pressure needed to provide enough lift to enable it to fly.
Yes, when I was thinking thicker air, I was thinking in terms of aerodynamic lift. But I wasn’t paying sufficient attention to the fact that this was only 6 million years ago, a time that did not have the thick air that was the case when there were dinosaurs, etc.
Whether the density of air was significantly different then than now, I don’t know, but apparently it wasn’t hugely different.
I was thinking air.
But the correct explanation seems to be that the bird relied on gliding: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/07/070702-biggest-bird.html
Although I wouldn’t want to conclude that it COULDN’T lift off under its own power. That would seem to be assuming more knowledge than we have. But concluding that it couldn’t have sustained wing-powered flight for long seems completely reasonable.
I’ve always been struck by how some birds can glide virtually forever, using thermals and ridge lift. Of course sailplanes can do this too, but it’s amazing to watch.