Zdeněk Burian's famous artistic reconstruction of Diatryma [=Gastornis]
giganteus (© Zdeněk Burian)
It was back in July 1997
when a curious snippet that apparently featured a while earlier on the internet
(possibly in the Virtual Bigfoot Conference website) was brought to my
attention by English palaeontologist Dr Darren Naish. However, its mysterious claim
is still unverified today, so I'm posting it here on ShukerNature in the hope
that readers may be able to help me finally resolve this very curious but
highly intriguing crypto-dilemma.
As far as Darren could
recall, the snippet claimed that several sightings had been made, the most
recent during 1975, of a 7-ft-tall bird in the Mount Adams area of Washington
State, USA, and which had been likened to a giant brown bird, called the pach-an-a-ho'
(variously translated as 'crooked-beak bird' or 'rough-looking bird'), from
traditional Yakima legends.
Two Diatryma giganteus models photographed in Reutlingen, Germany, in 2003 (© Markus Bühler)
In addition, a party of Native
Americans apparently visited a certain American museum not long before the
snippet appeared online, and became very excited when they saw a life-sized
reconstruction of a giant species of flightless, putatively predatory anseriform bird from
prehistoric (mid-Eocene) North America called Diatryma [aka Gastornis]
giganteus, because they claimed that this was the pach-an-a-ho'.
Sources informed me that
issue #20 (August 1992) of the Western Bigfoot Society's newsletter, The
Track Record, may include details concerning all of this. However, in April 2010 I learnt from American cryptozoologist
Chad Arment that in fact this issue does not contain any mention of such a bird.
Diatryma giganteus (© Justin Case aka
HodariNundu/Deviantart)
As for Diatryma
reconstructions, the only one that I am aware of in the USA was a diorama featuring
two adults and a chick that was housed at the California Academy of Sciences,
but it is no longer on display there.
Needless to say, I don't believe for one moment that there is a contemporary Diatryma dynasty stalking the slopes and environs of Mount Adams in scientifically-undisclosed seclusion, but the whole saga is undeniably intriguing - curiouser and curiouser, in fact, as Lewis Carroll's Wonderland-exploring Alice might well have said, had she been aware of it. Consequently, if any ShukerNature
readers can shed further light upon this mystifying case, I'd greatly welcome any
details.
For an extensive chapter
devoted to Diatryma and other gastornithids plus the formidable
phorusrhacids or terror birds, see my latest book The Menagerie of Marvels: A Third Compendium of Extraordinary Animals, to be published this
coming autumn by CFZ Press, and featuring a spectacular wraparound cover by celebrated artist Anthony Wallis showcasing a pair of monstrous terror birds in all their magnificent ferocity!
This ShukerNature blog
post is an expanded, updated excerpt from my book Karl Shuker's Alien Zoo: From the Pages of Fortean Times (CFZ Press: Bideford, 2010).
Fascinating. I've always thought that if there was ever to be a 'Jurassic Park' style resurrection (re-creation?) of an extinct mega species it would be an Elephant Bird of Madagascar or a Giant Moa of New Zealand. They died out comparatively recently so the chances of discovering intact, usable DNA should be conceivably higher. Who doesn't love giant birds?
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