Gastornis, the "Gaston's Bird," is the unwanted stepchild of the "terror birds." Although it super- ficially looks like the fearsome predators, it was more closely related to modern waterfowl. This  two-meter-tall bird is only a terror to plants! Originally Gastornis was thought to be a carnivore, but the structure of the beak suggests it  fed on tough plant matter. However, like the terror birds, Gastornis' skull and beak were huge compared to the rest of its body, though it lacked a raptorial hook on its beak. Its deep lower jaw and strong  muscles still gave it a nasty bite,  which was used to crack open nuts  and seeds. Footprints of Gastornis  exhibit a distinct lack of the hooked talons that were so popular among the cooler terror birds.  Living from the Paleocene to the Eocene Periods, Gastornis' range was far and wide across the  woodlands of Europe, the United  States, and China. Its earliest  fossils hail from England, where it was the largest tetropod on land. It likely originated there before spreading to China and then North  America via the Bering land bridge.  Though it coexisted with herbivorous  mammals called pantodonts,  competition with mammals is often  thought to be the reason why they went extinct.