#raptorattack

AUSTRALIAN EAGLE TAKES DOWN A DRONE IN A SPLIT SECOND

“Roll back the rock to the dawn of time – when the Earth was smokin’ and the lava flowed.”

-        Rex, We’re Back.1

So, despite that being a wildly inaccurate portrayal of the Mesozoic climate, it’s one of my favorite songs and has been since I was like three. Whatever. Point is, Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) are super rough, and they’re singlehandedly (talonedly?) reminding everyone that birds are just dinosaur horcruxes, and that the mammals-who-lived better stay on their artio/perissodactyl toes.

Yeah. That is what happens.

Golden eagles have long been known for taking large mammals as prey. Besides absconding with foxes, raccoons, bobcats, domestic cats2 and gorram REINDEER3 (also making an attempt on a young human in that one youtube video from a while back)4, they’ve been known to hurl bighorn sheep off the ledges they climb, then meander slowly down for an easy meal of bighorn sheep pulp5.

One Golden Eagle, an interwebs celebrity as of September 2013) apparently decided to show us what it takes to run things on earth for 210 million years. He or she was recently captured on film taking out a sika deer6 (note, this is a fairly large mammal, which can weigh up to 240 lbs in some populations)7.

The eagle likely accomplished that by crushing the deer’s spine or causing internal bleeding with talons that have fifteen times the grip strength of a human hand6.

I assume grip strength is measured in a unit called “Stathams.”

The most intense part? This method of hunting (latching onto the back and flapping to stay upright while making the kill) is now suspected to be the origin of flapping behavior in general. It's how we think Deinonychus and other dromeosaurids (basically bigger versions of Velociraptor, which was actually about the size of a fox) hunted, way back when8.

So the next time a little kid asks you what happened to the dinosaurs, don’t tell him or her they’re extinct. Tell the truth: they’re waiting. In the sky. Watching you.

By the way, I don’t have any rights to any of these images, and don’t claim to. So please don’t sue me.

 We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Story (1993)

 Olendorff RR (1976) The food habits of North American golden eagles. American Midland Naturalist, 95:231-236

 Nybakk K, Kjelvik O, Kvam T (1999) Golden eagle predation on semidomestic reindeer. Wildlife Society Bulletin, 27:1038-1042

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9feAQtgX1fw youtube.com “Golden eagle snatches kid” Uploaded by Mirrorviewvids

 McGahan J (1968) Ecology of the golden eagle. The Auk, 85:1-12

 Kerley LL, Slaight JC (2013) First documented predation of sika deer (Cervus Nippon) by Golden Eagle (Aquila chrystaetos) in Russian Far East. Journal of Raptor Research, 47:328-330

Nowak RM (1991) Walker’s Mammals of the World. Fifth Edition: Volume 2. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.