Question 1

How do you say Diatryma?

Accepted Answer

Diatryma is pronounced dy-uh-TRY-muh. Break it into four parts: DY, then uh, then TRY, then muh, and put the heaviest stress on that third syllable, TRY. A good trick is to say 'die a try ma' quickly and smoothly. The name comes from Greek and refers to a hole or perforation in one of the bird's foot bones.

Question 2

What does Diatryma mean?

Accepted Answer

Diatryma comes from two Greek words: 'dia' meaning through or across, and 'tryma' meaning a perforation or hole. The American paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope coined the name in 1876 to describe a notable opening he spotted in the bird's fused foot bone, the tarsometatarsus. So the name is essentially a bone description rather than anything to do with how scary or impressive the animal was. Scientists in the 1800s often named creatures after small anatomical details they found interesting under close examination.

Question 3

Was Diatryma a predator?

Accepted Answer

For a long time scientists assumed Diatryma was a fearsome predator because of its enormous hooked beak and massive size. But a landmark 2013 study analyzed the stable isotopes preserved in fossil bones and found that the nitrogen levels were more consistent with a plant-based diet than a meat-heavy one. Its beak was more likely used to crack open large seeds, nuts, and tough vegetation than to kill prey. Some researchers think it may have been an opportunist that ate both plants and the occasional small animal, but calling it a pure apex predator is now considered outdated.

Question 4

How big was Diatryma?

Accepted Answer

Diatryma stood roughly 1.75 to 2 meters tall, which is taller than most adult humans, and weighed somewhere around 90 to 100 kilograms, comparable to a large male lion. Its skull was about 40 centimeters long, roughly the length of a human arm from shoulder to wrist. Its legs were thick and muscular rather than long and slender, giving it a stocky, powerful build more like a giant wading bird than a long-legged sprinter. This made it one of the largest birds of its time.

Question 5

Is Diatryma the same as Gastornis?

Accepted Answer

That is actually one of the most actively debated questions in paleontology right now. For most of the twentieth century, scientists classified Diatryma as a junior synonym of Gastornis, meaning they were considered the same genus with Gastornis winning out as the official name. More recently, some researchers have argued that the North American Diatryma fossils are different enough from the European Gastornis specimens to deserve their own genus name again. The Paleobiology Database currently lists Diatryma as its own valid classification. So both names refer to very similar giant flightless birds, but whether they are truly identical is still being debated.

Question 6

Where did Diatryma live?

Accepted Answer

Diatryma fossils have been found in the United States, particularly from Eocene deposits in Wyoming and New Jersey, and in Germany in Europe. During the Eocene epoch, roughly 51 to 41 million years ago, these regions were covered in warm, subtropical forests very different from the landscapes you see there today. The fact that closely related birds existed on both continents suggests that either the animal was able to disperse widely or that the North American and European populations shared a common ancestor from a time when the continents were more easily connected by land bridges or island chains.

Question 7

When did Diatryma go extinct?

Accepted Answer

According to the Paleobiology Database, Diatryma's last known fossils date to approximately 41 million years ago, during the middle Eocene epoch. It had already been alive for roughly 10 million years by that point, which is actually a very long and successful run. Scientists are not entirely sure what caused its disappearance, but climate changes during the Eocene, including a gradual cooling and drying of forests, likely reduced the dense warm habitats it depended on. The rise of larger and faster mammals may also have played a role over millions of years.

Question 8

Did Diatryma live with dinosaurs?

Accepted Answer

No, Diatryma lived tens of millions of years after the non-bird dinosaurs went extinct. The mass extinction event that wiped out most dinosaurs happened about 66 million years ago, and Diatryma did not appear in the fossil record until around 51 million years ago. That means there is a gap of roughly 15 million years between the last non-bird dinosaurs and the first Diatryma. Diatryma did, however, share its world with the earliest ancestors of modern horses, tapirs, and other mammals that were just beginning to diversify and fill the ecological spaces left behind by the dinosaurs.

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