''Pachystruthio'' is a genus of extinct

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

which lived in

Eurasia Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...

from the Late

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the '' Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed ...

. Its fossils have been found in

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croa ...

, the

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Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the Southeast United States Georgia may also refer to: Places Historical states and entities * Related to t ...

, and China. The genus contains three species: ''P. pannonicus'' (the type species), ''P. dmanisensis'', and ''P. transcaucasicus'', which were all formerly placed with the

ostrich Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There a ...

genus, ''

Struthio Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There ar ...

''. An incomplete femur from the Nihewan Formation (China) has been assigned to ''Pachystruthio'' indet. ''P. dmanisensis'' has been estimated standing 3.5 meters (11.5 feet) tall and weighing up to 450 kg (990 lb), making it much larger than the modern ostrich and one of the largest known birds. Although ''Pachystruthio'' is known as the giant ostrich, its relationship to the extant ostriches of the genus ''Struthio'' is not clear.

References

* * * Birds described in 1954 Extinct flightless birds Fossil taxa described in 1954 Neogene birds of Asia Pleistocene birds Pleistocene species extinctions Pliocene birds Prehistoric birds of Europe Quaternary birds of Asia Struthionidae {{paleo-bird-stub