Terror bird

I was reading an article about the difference between Old World Vultures (found in Europe, Asia and Africa) and New World Vultures (found in North and South America). It was really interesting, we've known for a long time that old world vultures are in the raptor family but there's been an ongoing debate about new world vultures. At first they were thought to be raptors as well (descended from other birds of prey), after studying their behavior and DNA there was some thought that they were descended from stocks, but now the discovery of some prehistoric skeletons suggest that they are actually a family of their own.

The image on the left is a California Condor- a New World Vulture. California Condors are the largest flying bird on Earth (it weighs 18-20 lbs)
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The image on the right is a Hooded Vulture- an Old World Vulture

This is one of the New World (Turkey) Vultures that lives at the raptor center that I work at. Her name is Aura and based on her attitude- she KNOWS she's beautiful

The part of the article that was really interesting for me was the description of the prehistoric vulture. These birds were up to 7 feet tall, had a wingspan of 20 feet and weighed 120 lbs (and they could still fly!). For those of you who are familiar with the Macbride Raptor Project, this bird (with its wings out-stretched) would be as long as our clinic building and only slightly shorter. Imagine if these birds were still around; it would certainly make my job (catching and treating sick and injured birds of prey) a LOT more interesting.

I couldn't find a picture of the prehistoric vulture, but I really wanted to share this picture with you. The caption was "dinosaur-like terror bird"