OREANDA-NEWS The giant parrot rockstones were found by an international team of archaeologists in New Zealand. As the New Zealand Herald reported on Wednesday, the bird lived more than 20 million years ago and reached 1 meter in height with a weight of 10 kilos. 

An analysis of the fossils of the giant parrot discovered by a group of scientists from Australia and New Zealand allowed to identify the ancient bird as a representative of the largest ever-existing parrot species. "When we discovered bones in the excavations near the old gold mining quarry in Otago, we first thought that it was a duck or the remains of a flightless bird such as a kiwi, but not a parrot. Nobody had ever seen traces of parrots of this size," said Dr. Trevor Worthy, who examined fossil bones. Radiocarbon analysis showed that their age is about 20 million years. 

Unfortunately, as scientists note, the time allotted to the giant parrots was short-lived. The global cooling, which occurred 12 million years ago, significantly lowered the average temperature on the islands of New Zealand and the giant birds died out, following the disappearance of the subtropical forests. Archaeologists hope that a more thorough study of fossils and analysis of their DNA will help find modern relatives of Hercules, albeit much smaller ones.