Giant Storks

17 Dec 210 - Fossils of a giant stork have been discovered on the far-flung Indonesian island of Flores that has been home to many extreme-sized creatures - from tiny human-like hobbits and dwarf elephants to the world's largest known rats and lizards. The leg bones of a giant marabou stork, which lived 20,0000 to 50,000 years ago, indicate it stood around 180 cm tall and weighed up to 16 kg. Flores has never been connected to another island or mainland, shaping evolution of historic wildlife, with many small-sized warm blooded animals growing larger than elsewhere on the planet, and big sized mammals becoming more diminutive. With no mammalian carnivores, birds and reptiles faces less competition for food, accounting for some of their massive size. Even today, rats can be more than  40 cm from head to body can be found on Flores. The area is also known for the Komodo dragons, the largest lizards on earth, which can grow up to 3 m long and weighing up to 70 kg.