Big bird

Blue Rhino Studio

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The renovated and expanded Yale Peabody Museum won’t reopen until next year, but this summer, the museum offered a sneak peek at one of its new exhibits: a full-scale model of a giant fowl called Gastornis. The species existed between 60 million and 45 million years ago, just after the dinosaurs became extinct. The model, crafted by Blue Rhino Studio, is nearly eight feet tall. (Its size was determined by a 24-inch tibia in the Peabody’s collection.) Researchers once believed Gastornis was a predator, but current thinking is that the bird was herbivorous. As Kailen Rogers of the Peabody told the New Haven Register, that’s why there’s a coconut in its mouth: “It’s not here to eat you.”