AP Photos
By ROBIN McDOWELL
Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia – Fossils of a giant stork have been discovered on a far-flung Indonesian island that has been home to many extreme-sized creatures – from tiny human-like “hobbits” and dwarf elephants to the world’s largest-known rats and lizards.
Authors Hanneke Meijer and Rokus Due wrote in the December issue of the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society that leg bones from the marabou stork, which lived 20,000 to 50,000 years ago, indicate it stood around 6 feet (180 centimeters) tall and weighed up to 35 pounds (16 kilograms).