Larger birds were nocturnal and probably blind, according to a study

A rendering of elephant birds, who would have wandered in what is Madagascar today.

John Maisano for the University of Texas at the Austin Jackson School of Geosciences

The largest birds ever known by scientists preferred to wander at night and were perhaps blind, according to a study by researchers at the University of Texas in Austin.

The elephant was a bird unable to fly 10 meters tall that went extinct 500 to 1,000 years ago. He lived on the island of Madagascar. The UT-Austin researchers wanted to know more about this creature, so they used CT data to create reconstructions of the brain called endocasts.

Their results were published online Wednesday in the peer-reviewed journal Acts of the Royal Society B.

Scientists have specifically examined two skulls of elephant birds. In both The researchers found that the part of the brain responsible for vision was very small, suggesting that it was nocturnal and possibly blind.

"What's unique to birds and mammals is that the skull is tightly wrapped in the brain, which means you can take it and fill the space where the brain would have gone," he said. Christopher Torres, doctoral candidate at the University of Texas. in Austin and senior author, said USA TODAY.

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"It was so unexpected that when we took a look at this reconstruction, we did not realize at first that they were not there," Torres said.

Torres said that elephant birds belonged to the Palaeognathae group, usually categorized as large, flightless birds.

Previous research has assumed that large, flightless birds, such as ostriches, are closely related to one another, Torres said. The study showed that the elephant bird had more in common with another animal of the Palaeognathae group: the kiwi, a smaller nocturnal bird living in New Zealand.

"In this group, we did not really know what was going to happen, but no one expected elephant birds and kiwis to be the closest relatives to one another. on the other, "said Torres.

Knowing now that these birds may be nocturnal and perhaps blind, researchers have a better idea of ​​how these animals lived, Torres said. "There was a moment when we realized that we must rethink everything we take for granted about how we rebuild their biology."

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