Great Bustard (Otis tarda), males displaying, family Otididae, order Otidiformes, NE China

ENDANGERED.

At up to 40 lbs, the male is one of the world’s heaviest flying birds.

Griffember 10 (#87) - lesser florican (CR) [male]

When it comes to 'shaped' birds, I think bustards are certainly one of the best! This species of bustard does a silly looking display where the male puffs up and hops into the air - youtube link, video also has some information about their conservation status.

Result from the Pleistocene Sicily #paleostream! This piece was a fascinating up and down to construct and to research. While certainly iconic our understanding of these faunas is not complete and misinformation and memes plaster ones way. Center of this piece...

are the tiny elephants of the genus Palaeoloxodon falconeri that gathered around this olive tree to eat from leafs and fruit off it. However while many birds are around as well you might notice the absence of the giant swan Cygnus falconeri. That is not because I wanted to be...

contrarian but it's actually down to this bird not existing with the P. falconeri fauna. This fauna was deposited on Sicily and Malta during the early Middle Pleistocene while the giant swan comes from a later fauna in the late Middle Pleistocene, roughly half a million years...

apart. Both faunas are very distinct with the later one having way more mainland species coming over, among them also a new Palaeoloxodon species, deer and small hippos. This appears to be linked to a sea level drop because of the beginning glaciation of the last ice age...

I still wanted to focus on the P. falconeri fauna though, not just because these small pachyderms are just to damn fascinating but also because this was clearly a very isolated fauna and distinct fauna. On top of that the small size and yet still quite large brain size mean that...