Bird with 21-foot wingspan could be the largest to ever live

Bird with 21-foot wingspan could be the largest to ever live
(Image credit: Twitter.com/USNews)

It's a bird, it's a plane, it's a bird the size of a (really small) plane!

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, paleontologist Daniel Ksepka describes the extinct Pelagornis sandersi as having a wingspan nearly 21 feet across, making it the largest flying bird ever found. The fossil was discovered in 1983 near the Charleston Airport in South Carolina, but sat in a drawer at the Charleston Museum for almost three decades before Ksepka stumbled upon the bones. He ended up naming the bird after Albert Sanders, the now-retired museum curator who collected the fossils.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.