In the 1950s, miners in Geiseltal, Germany, uncovered a strange object. The fossilized skull was thought to be that of a crocodile, so it was sent into storage to be examined at a later date. Unfortunately, with the thought that it was just a crocodile skull, it would take decades to see the light again.
Overlooked
The fossil was placed in the Geiseltal Collection at Martin Luther University (MLU) in Germany, where it sat among an enormous collection. This meant it was overlooked for years until one day in the 21st century.
Rediscovered
The fossil sat forgotten until a geological preparator at MLU named Michael Stache rediscovered it. He commented, “The find was initially misidentified as a crocodile skull.” He saw that it wasn’t a crocodile and decided to correct the mistake from decades ago.
Studying The Skull
Stache took the skull out of storage and studied it extensively when he noticed it wasn’t fully intact. The skull was missing a fragment, meaning it would be much harder to examine. Thankfully, he returned to the storage and started looking for missing pieces.
Putting The Pieces Together
But it wasn’t long before he found another skull fragment in storage that perfectly fit the fossil. Then, the fossil could be identified as a Diatryma skull, which had huge implications for the scientific community just based on how rare the find was.
Extremely Rare
The skull’s importance wasn’t lost on Stache. This is an extremely rare find, as there is only one other fully preserved Diatryma skull in the world, which sits at the American Museum of Natural History in the United States. With a fully intact skull in Europe, it could be studied to understand more about the bird.
Diatryma
Diatryma was a large bird nearly five feet tall that lived in what is now modern-day Geiseltal, Germany. The region was home to many animals, including ancient horses and crocodiles, which explains the confusion about what the skull belonged to.
A Different World
The region now Geiseltal would have looked very different from what it is today. The climate would have been much warmer, and the region would have been dotted with tropical swamps, creating the perfect environment for Diatryma and other animals.
Insights Into Early Bird Diets
Diatryma was thought for a long time to be a bird of prey. They believed that it chased down small animals with its powerful beak, but a lack of claws supports new research on the species, indicating that it probably wasn’t a hunter at all.
Terror Birds
For a long time, Diatryma was considered to hunt like many large flightless birds from the Eocene. Terror birds are an infamous extinct species that primarily lived in South America and hunted their prey with their sharp beak and claws.
Eocene Epoch
Researchers now believe that Diatryma was an herbivore that used its peaks to eat tough plants. The discovery of Diatryma’s diet provides insight into the Eocene Epoch. These new theories challenge previous hypotheses about the ecosystem at the time.
New Insights
Researchers may be able to trace how birds adapted from Diatryma and what evolution occurred after that. With the other Diatryma skull found in America, there are implications about how different populations of the same species would have changed over time.
New And Old Finds
The rediscovery of the Diatryma skull highlights the importance of understanding artifacts and not overlooking them. Dr. Gerald Mayr, a German paleontologist, notes that Diatryma isn’t the first case of an important find being misidentified or lost in a museum.
