Pelagornithids: The Largest Flying Birds 

Argentavis: *commonly known as the largest flying extinct bird* Pelagornis: I'm gonna pretend I didn't see that

It is really impressive how fast birds occupied the niches of pterosaurs

You forgot to mention they were thermal soarers like frigatebirds and unlike the dynamic soaring albatrosses

I was literally just researching Pelagornithids an hour before this uploaded. This video was better than any of the websites on them. WOW.

Your videos are a bit over my head, but I follow as best I can. I love to learn about animals past and present. I like to learn a lot of things. thank you for the videos.

Glad you made this video on this often overlooked group of birds! Excited to learn more obscure, niche groups that no one talks about! Keep it coming! :-)

Pelagornithid and Pelagornis are among my favorite prehistoric animals and birds. And this video give them a lot of recognition and tribute. Large and majestic beast roaming the sky above the infinite and flat seas ; dire albatross that were expressively serious, grumpy, aggressive and scary looking with their very unusual and almost unique beak which made them directly reconizable. Fish and Cephalopods eating birds which coexisted and died along the famous Megalodon, the biggest shark, marine predators and carnivores the Earth have ever see. Successfull, thriving and long lived birds with existed from most of the Cenozoïc itself worlwide, both at all the North Equator and South Equator. In warm to cold areas. From Coasts, to open-seas, to islands where they reproduced at the complete safety from any kind of predators. Truly birds and extincts animals which deserved attention and recognition mote than paleomedias give them usually, for the odd yet hugely fascinating and proud creatures they were.

As with albatrosses, pelagornithids had very long and slender wings for dynamic soaring on wind deflected off waves; in fact they were even more specialized for this than albatrosses (which already depend on it for most of their flight), to the extent that the larger pelagornithids like P. chilensis and P. sandersi had very poor flapping capability. It is possible that these birds were nearly or even completely incapable of powered flight, relying on gliding and dynamic soaring to travel through the air. This really wouldn't have been much of an issue, as studies indicate pelagornithids, especially the larger ones, were extremely well-suited to gliding and dynamic soaring, which would have been enough as long as they were in flight out at sea (which they were for most of their lifespans). Aside from their wingspan, the other notable thing about these birds is their pseudoteeth, fang-like projections that lined the length of their beaks. While a predatory adaptation for seizing fish and squid, they were not heavily reinforced and thus wouldn’t enable pelagornithids to handle prey closer to themselves in size (unlike some modern seabirds like the giant petrels, which can kill adult emperor penguins and albatrosses).

Another great upload by everyone's favourite basal Polarisidae

Love your work Dr.Polaris!!

I'm pretty sure that argentavis was heavier and therefore bigger Other than that I gotta say that I enjoyed learning about these birds and was blown away by their wingspans and '' teeth ''

remember when I said that I wanted to see more animated paleo media like Land Before Time and Ice Age with the creatures talking and having personalities. well, I would absolutely love to see a scene where a Pelagornithid is flying over the landscape similar to the Pterosaur in the opening of Disney's Dinosaur.

I wonder if on one of the sunken islands there were flightless predatory members of these group

Are you in my head or something lol? The vids you make often occur coincidentally with what I draw!! 😂 A few weeks ago , I did a Pelagornis!

Very interesting topic - thanks a lot for dealing here with this!

Amazing video

I am suprised that we don't refer to them as "dire albatrosses" or something like that.

Fascinating!

A disruption to breeding colonies could've had a massive effect on the global populations of these birds if they're anything like their modern relatives. The collapse of only a few of their more sizable colonies could've led to the terminal decline in their population numbers; a fate shared by many seabirds that have gone extinct or nearly so in the modern day. The Bermuda & Hawaiian Petrel are excellent examples of what can happen to a seabird species with millions of individuals when even just two or three large colonies become disrupted.

I love this channel

I love these kinds of videos, the narration and simple forms for videos make it neat for my little caveman brain. :)

NEW DR !!

is that the hozen-theme music from mists of pandaria?

06:50 Jesus that actually startled me a bit lmao

Would you agree, Dr. Polaris, with Dr. Robert Bakker's suggestion in his 1986 book "The Dinosaur Heresies" that the class "Aves" should be redesigned "Dinoaves" as birds ARE dinosaurs?

0:58 are you sure the neornithes was a previously rare group? Their very close relatives, "the Enantiornithes, also known as enantiornithines or enantiornitheans in literature, are a group of extinct avialans ("birds" in the broad sense), the most abundant and diverse group known from the Mesozoic era." OFC they had a diversification boom afterwards, but it seems to me they were doing just fine before too.

So did dinosaurs evolve into birds? or did dinosaurs not evolve into birds?

Why is the audio so funky ?

When will cryptids return?

Are there any more brands under MidnightSun Productions?

bit off topic but it's curious that bats have never evolved into gigantic sizes. there could easily be a bat species who specialized hunting different sizes of birds and small ground animals.

I mean..."largest" is a relative term here. Most teratorns, especially Argentavis, weighed much more than these very gracile birds. The difference is just in the wingspan.

Hey Dr.Polaris, why don't you also get to make a suggestion to create the RU-vid Videos Shows about the evolution and the history of the Extinct Prehistoric Primitive Ancestors Of The Modern Birds called the Ornithothoraces, such as Enantiornithes, and Euornithes in the next couple of weeks to think about that one coming up next?!👍👍👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Man I wish giant terrifying teeth bird's still existed

527th like!👍 Awesome video!🤘 Keep up the awesome work!🤘😎🤘

Man why is it that all the cool creatures are extinct 😑

Dinosaurs strike back in the air!

Hey Dr.Polaris, why don't you also get to make a suggestion to create the RU-vid Videos Shows about the evolution and the history of the Extinct Prehistoric Primitive Ancestors Of The Modern Birds called the Ornithothoraces in the next couple of weeks to think about that one coming up next?!👍👍👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

A dinosaur which evolved into a U-2.

Hey Dr.Polaris, right after the evolution and the history of the Therocephalians, why don't you also get to make a suggestion to create the RU-vid Videos Shows about the evolution and the history of the Extinct Prehistoric Primitive Ancestors Of The Modern Birds called the Ornithothoraces, such as Enantiornithes, and Euornithes in the next couple of weeks to think about that one coming up next?!👍👍👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Hey Dr.Polaris, right after the evolution and the history of the Therocephalians, why don't you also get to make a suggestion to create the RU-vid Videos Shows about the evolution and the history of the Extinct Prehistoric Primitive Ancestors Of The Modern Birds called the Ornithothoraces in the next couple of weeks to think about that one coming up next?!👍👍👍👍👍⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Did anyone else see the picture of the vomiting bird and suddenly realise where the stories of fire breathing dragons may have come from??

While I loved the video, there's something that I feel like I need to point out. You mentioned the basal genus Protodontopteryx, but whenever you mention its name you call it Prodontopteryx, a genus that doesn't exist as far as I know. I really hope you see this comment. I did love this video, I hope I didn't come across as too critical, but hearing a name get repeatedly mispronounced like that always annoys me, especially when it comes from someone who's normally much better at getting names right.

Wait, wasn't the Argentavis the largest?

Pseudo-teeth are interesting.

Argentavis is the largest ever flying bird.

Sudo-teeth birds 😆