Europe’s extinct giant crane was probably never a separate species. Scientists examining ancient DNA say the unusually large birds once classified as “Grus primigenia” were members of the common crane species still living in Europe. The finding offers an answer to a mystery that has lasted more than 150 years.
The dispute began in 1871, when French scientist Alphonse Milne-Edwards described a giant crane from a fossil leg bone found in a cave in southwestern France. Other large crane bones surfaced across Europe. Some researchers accepted the extinct species, while others thought the fossils came from living cranes.
A team led by John Stewart of Bournemouth University analyzed ancient DNA from 18 crane remains found in Britain, France, Germany and Spain’s Balearic Islands. All matched the common crane, “Grus grus.” The study, published in Royal Society Open Science, also ruled out the sarus and Siberian cranes as identities for those fossils.
How Europe’s extinct giant crane became a case of mistaken identity
The bones’ unusual size fueled debate. The team compared ancient and modern specimens and used genetic markers to determine the sex of the birds. Male common cranes are generally bigger than females, making size alone an unreliable way to separate species.
The results showed that ancient males could be larger than modern males. Some ancient females were also bigger than females today, and one female bone from Le Morin in France exceeded corresponding measurements from modern cranes. Those differences help explain why fossils from the same species appeared to represent two types of bird.
Large crane bones from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Flixborough in England suggest the common crane remained bigger until the 11th century. The study indicates the birds became smaller later, although researchers have not established when the change began or why it happened.
The original fossil remains untested, leaving one question open
Researchers also found no genetic support for a theory that large cranes in Britain belonged to a distinct subspecies. British fossils appeared alongside continental European samples on the genetic family tree rather than forming a distinct group.
But the original fossil used to name “Grus primigenia” was not tested. Testing the specimen in Paris would damage it. The team says this leaves a small possibility that the name could still describe a distinct species, even though other Ice Age fossils from France proved to be common cranes.
The team has suggested climate shifts or human changes to wetlands, including drainage, as possible reasons for the decline in size. Stewart said, “more work is needed to resolve that.” It also raises questions about other supposedly extinct birds named from unusually large bones.
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