Quaternary birds of Australia

Genyornis is an extinct genus of large, flightless bird that lived in Australia during the Pleistocene Epoch until around 40-50,000 years ago. Over two metres in height, they were likely herbivorous. It is the last known member of the extinct flightless bird family Dromornithidae which had been part of the fauna of the Australian continent for over 30 million years. They are not closely related to ratites such as emus, and they are thought to be a gigantic type of fowl, likely an early diverging group within the Anseriformes, which contains ducks and geese. Genyornis. and many other Australian

Cryptogyps is an extinct genus of Old World vulture from the Pleistocene of Australia. It was relatively small for a vulture but still larger than the extant wedge-tailed eagle. Originally described as an eagle in 1905 (under the binomial name Taphaetus lacertosus), in 2022 it was reidentified as a vulture, the first known example from the continent. Phylogenetic analysis suggests it either being a sister species to the extant, widespread Eurasian vulture genus Gyps or as a more basal member of the subfamily. The identification of Cryptogyps as a vulture solves a longstanding mystery about the

species of bird

Dynatoaetus is an extinct genus of large bird of prey from the Pleistocene of Australia. It is among the largest known raptors of the region, second only to the Haast's eagle of New Zealand, with estimates suggesting a weight of up to . Although most closely related to modern vultures, it shows clear adaptations towards an active predatory lifestyle in the form of robust, powerful talons. This may either hint at it retaining these ancestral features from the closely related serpent eagles or show that it convergently evolved these features as it took on a similar lifestyle. Due to their size a