Experts uncover ‘large hen’ that lived alongside tiny ‘human hobbits’ 120,000 years in the past

The chicken-like bird weighed an estimated 3.9kg a discovery based single fossilised leg bone excavated in 2009 at Liang Bua cave, the site where researchers found the remains of an ancient human species nicknamed the “hobbits”

An extinct ‘giant chicken’ that once roamed the Indonesian island of Flores alongside tiny Hobbit-like humans has been identified by scientists.

The chicken-like bird weighed an estimated 3.9kg (8.6lb) – several times heavier than its closest living relatives on the island.It belonged to a group of unusual ground-dwelling birds known as megapodes, which bury their eggs in large mounds or underground burrows, relying on heat from the surrounding earth to incubate them.The discovery is based on a single fossilised leg bone excavated in 2009 at Liang Bua cave, the site where researchers found the remains of Homo floresiensis, an ancient human species nicknamed the “hobbits”. Dwarf elephants and giant storks also roamed the exotic island.The fossil went largely unnoticed for 17 years before scientists identified it as a previously unknown species, named Megapodius rokusi. It is thought to be the largest known member of its genus.The fossilised bone was discovered nearly 7m beneath the floor of Liang Bua cave.

Indonesian zooarchaeologist Rokus Due Awe was the first to recognise it as belonging to a bird, but its significance remained unclear.The fossil dates to between 190,000 and 120,000 years ago, during the Pleistocene epoch.When palaeontologist Hanneke Meijer, from the University Museum of Bergen, and her colleagues examined it in detail, they noticed several unusual features.The specimen is the lower section of a right tarsometatarsus – a bone in the lower leg that connects to the toes.The joints where the toes attach were shaped differently from those of other known megapodes. One angled unusually far outwards, while another had a distinctive groove and rounded depression.

Comparisons with the bones of living and extinct species showed that this combination of features had not been seen before. The researchers therefore concluded that the fossil belonged to a new species.Its size was also striking. By measuring the bone and applying statistical estimates linking leg-bone dimensions to body weight, the team calculated that the bird would have weighed about 3.9kg.Although relatively modest by the standards of some modern domestic chickens, which have been bred for meat production and thus have weights that are not comparable to their wild ancestors, the bird was considerably larger than today’s megapodes on Flores.The newly identified species provides further evidence of the unusual animals that once inhabited Flores.Scientists hope further fossil discoveries will help shed light on the bird’s evolution, behaviour and eventual disappearance.