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Over 50,000 years ago, our ancient cousin, Homo floresiensis, lived on the Indonesian island Flores. Popularly referred to as "hobbits,” adults were ~3 ft tall.

Soaring the skies above them, a giant carnivorous bird, Leptoptilos robustus, measured 6 ft tall with a long, sharp beak.

Did they interact? Newspapers around the world have run sensationalized headlines claiming the #birds ate hobbit babies, but scientists just don’t know. Yet. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/legend-of-the-killer-storks?loggedin=true&rnd=1671358177754 #science #history #SharedPlanet

Legend of the Killer Storks

What makes a monster? Godzilla, Medusa, Frankenstein’s monster, Fáfnir, the Alien: All these fictional fiends have disparate origins, attributes, and motivations, but they are tied together by their disregard for what we perceive as the natural order…
Riley Black (National Geographic)
#science #history #birds #sharedplanet
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
in reply to Sheril Kirshenbaum

varx/social
varx/social
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I mean, if they were around at the same time, they absolutely did. Predators generally don't seem to be too picky. My favorite example is that you can find photos of herons eating alligators and alligators eating herons. But also spiders and praying mantises eating birds, centipedes eating bats, etc.

I wouldn't reckon that humans were a *major* part of their diet, though.

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