According to a study published in the journal Biology Letters, a giant parrot that roamed New Zealand about 19 million years ago had a height of 1m (3ft 2in) – more than half the average height of a human .
The parrot named Heracles inexpactatus -—signifying its Herculean size and the surprise of the discovery — is the largest-ever discovered.
The remains of the parrot were found near St Bathans in New Zealand’s southern Otago region.
Given its size, the parrot is believed to have been flightless and carnivorous, unlike most birds today.
Experts from Flinders University, UNSW Sydney and Canterbury Museum in New Zealand estimate Heracles to be 1 metre tall, weighing about 7kg. With this size, the bird would have been two times heavier than the kākāpo, previously the largest known parrot.
St Bathans, where the giant parrot’s leg bones were excavated, is an area known for its abundance of fossils from the Miocene epoch, which extended from 23 million to 5.3 million years ago.
