Unraveling the enigma of an ancient bird’s extinction

AI provides a new tool for studying extinct species from 50,000 years ago. Researchers Beatrice Demarchi from the University of Turin, Josefin Stiller from the University of Copenhagen, and Matthew Collins from the University of Cambridge and University of Copenhagen share insights into their AlphaFold journey. Could burn marks on ancient eggshells explain the disappearance of the giant flightless bird Genyornis newtoni? This ostrich-sized “thunderbird,” known as “the demon-duck of doom” due to its massive head, vanished from Australia’s fossil record approximately 50,000 years ago. The discovery of burned eggshells led scientists, including a team led by Gifford Miller at the University of Colorado Boulder, to suggest that early human consumption of these eggs contributed to their extinction.

However, the evidence was not definitive. The burned eggshells appeared too thin to originate from such a large bird. Could they have belonged to something smaller, perhaps the size of a large turkey? To investigate whether Genyornis went extinct due to human actions, scientists needed to confirm that the burnt shell fragments indeed came from Genyornis eggs. This created another challenge: the DNA in these eggshells had degraded after 50,000 years in the harsh Australian desert. Consequently, the researchers turned to proteins and artificial intelligence to help bridge the gaps in their findings.

A genuinely multidisciplinary team, consisting of specialists in ancient fossil proteins, bird genetics, archaeology, and more, collaborated to decode the eggshell mystery and understand what led to the extinction of the thunderbird. The results indicate that these seemingly delectable large eggs were indeed the eggs of Genyornis. For further details, refer to the publication by Beatrice, Josefin, Matthew, and their colleagues in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.