Peck on this!

Phorusrhacids towered almost ten feet into the air and even though they've been flightless birds extinct for millions of years, their name still lingers because of their giant hooked beaks the size of horse heads. Now new research show that those hooks weren't only for show, like Muhammad Ali they used swift punishing blows to kill their prey. The Phorusrhacids lived on the back then island continent of South America, isolated. Living on an island they had plenty of time to hone their skills in hunting. After appearing about 60 million years ago these Phorusrhacids (dubbed "Terror Birds") evolved into at least 18 species, all of which died off 2 or 3 million years ago when South America and North America collided. Even though they died out, they didn't go out without a bang. During their reign they terrorized their prey like the T.Rex successors.

This relates to biology because ever since the discovery of this "Terror Bird" not many scientists know much about how it hunted. But by rendering a 3-D based computer model on their behavior of one of it's species the Andalgalornis they were able to figure out that the Terror Birds hacked at their prey's head in swift and devastating blows, leaving them disgruntled before finishing them off.This study showed how these enigmatic birds killed their prey with their horse sized heads and deadly hooked beaks.

This is important to learn because before this study, not much was known about how the Terror Birds hunted or lived. Even though they weren't built to kill like a lioness, they developed a technique for effective hunting; quick and heavy blows to the prey's head to effectively kill the prey without much work. Instead of staying for a full fight they'd hack at their prey, run away and come back; repeating until it died. This illuminates a new way prehistoric Avian Dinosaurs hunted. The Terror Birds that rivaled the T.Rex may have went extinct earlier, they still struck fear even in scientists 60 million years later.