Terror Bird Fossil Reveals It Was a Master Hunter With a Deep Voice

A nearly complete skeleton of a terror bird found in Argentina is giving researchers new insights into its hunting and auditory capacities.

According to BBC, the fossil has been identified as new species and named Llallawavis scagliali, belonging to the family of terror birds. The bird lost its ability to fly but developed some unique hunting skills including killing its prey with long hooked, beaks.

"Considered as apex predators, their hunting skills have recently been examined, but their diversity is still unresolved," researchers wrote in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Terrors birds evolved as one of the top land predators after the extinction of dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

The intact Llallawavis skull has allowed researchers to reconstruct the inner ear, revealing that the bird was sensitive to low-frequency sounds which could have helped with prey detection.

"Our estimations of hearing sensitivity places Llallawavis below the average for living species. At the lower frequency end of the range of hearing, the ear becomes less sensitive to soft sounds. It seems plausible to hypothesize that Llallawavis had enhanced acoustic abilities at lower frequency registers, presumably used for intraspecific acoustic communication or prey detection," researchers wrote.

They further hypothesized that its low-frequency hearing meant the bird could also produced low-frequency sounds.