This Giant Prehistoric Crane Species, Once Believed Extinct, Would Never Have Existed

In the 19th century, excavations of caves and peat bogs in Northern Europe revealed remains from a genuine prehistoric menagerie, including the skull of what was believed to be a giant crane that had disappeared. A possibility challenged by a recent study.

Grus primigenia

Based on the unusual size of the fossil and the fact that many Ice Age animals, including lions and cave bears, were larger than their modern relatives, the French biologist Alphonse Milne-Edwards had attributed it at the time to a primitive crane species, named Grus primigenia.

Published in the Geobios journal, the work led by John Stewart and colleagues from Bournemouth University suggests that it was actually an European gray crane (Grus grus), a bird able to reach up to 1.2 meters tall and renowned for its rather noisy courtship displays.

While the species remains present today across much of Eastern Europe, as well as in certain regions of France, Spain, and the United Kingdom, bones dating back up to 20,000 years have shown that it was once widespread in the western part of the Old Continent.

According to Stewart, until now scientists had mainly relied on the shape and size of the bones to determine which species they belonged to. DNA comparisons of 18 ancient specimens, found in England, Wales, France, Germany, and the Balearic Islands, have helped clarify their phylogenetic position.

The species that probably did not exist

The team’s conclusion is clear: it was exclusively European gray cranes, which were simply larger. “The males were more massive than their modern counterparts, and the females were similar in size to them,” explains Stewart.

At this stage, the researcher links this trajectory to the development of human activities after the Ice Age, when European hunter-gatherer communities began to settle down.

“We suspect drainage of wetlands and changes in land use, but further work will be needed to confirm it,” he concludes.

Earlier, the analysis of a colossal skull had revealed that a legendary prehistoric bird was a giant goose.