A massive meat-eating bird sat high atop the food chain about 12 million years ago. Researchers analyzed a bone of the creature found in northern South America nearly 20 years ago and determined that it was likely a "terror bird" related to Phorusrhacids,

A Colombian rancher has discovered a fossilized bone that points to the existence of a giant terror bird species. The fossil, an enormous leg bone found in the Tatacoa Desert, suggests that this bird stood over three meters tall,

The previous tallest members of the family were almost 3 meters high, and this was probably substantially bigger.

Though known only from a shinbone fragment, a newly-described flesh-eating terror just might be the largest known member of its feathered kind. Phorusrhacid 'terror birds' stalked what's now Colombia's Tatacoa Desert around 12 million years ago,