Large flightless carnivore bird. Like all phorusrhacids, Titanis had elongated hind limbs, a thin pelvis, proportionally small wings, and a large skull with a hooked beak. It is thought that Titanis used its large beak and talons to pummel its prey to death, this is seen in its modern day relatives, Seriemas. Their skull bones were also fused together, suggesting that they used their beaks to kill their prey as well. Titanis also had very long legs, as a result they had a digitigrade stance, which meant that they stood on their toes and not the bottoms of their feet.
Flightless carnivore. It likely preyed on mammals such as the extinct armadillo relatives Holmesina and Glyptotherium, equids, tapirs, capybaras, and other Pliocene herbivores. Titanis didn't hunt humans, this terror bird lived and died before people arrived. Titanis is known from the Pliocene deposits of Florida, southern California, and southeastern Texas, regions that had large open savannas and a menagerie of mammalian megafauna.
The Terror Bird's original range was in South America however, it migrated to North America during an event known as the Great American Biotic Interchange (GABI) when terrestrial connection was formed in between North and South America. They then had to compete with all of the North American carnivores for resources. However, the primary cause of extinction probably had to do with climate change altering ecosystems from forests to grasslands making it harder for Titanis to stalk its prey.
The first fossils were unearthed by amateur archaeologists Benjamin Waller and Robert Allen (no information for these two) from the Santa Fe River in Florida and were named Titanis walleri by ornithologist Pierce Brodkorb in 1963, the species name honoring Waller. They were named Titanis walleri by ornithologist Pierce Brodkorb in 1963, the species name honoring Waller.