Nearly 53 million years back during the Eocene Epoch, Ellesmere Island in the high Arctic looked like cyprus swamplands. According to fossil evidence it was home to prehistoric turtles, alligators and other animals.

Now, a latest study has confirmed that a 6-foot tall flightless bird with head of the size of a horse head and weighing several hundred pounds also used to stay there in winters.

In a study appeared in Scientific Reports, researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the University of Colorado-Boulder have studied and explained the first and only fossil proof from the Arctic of a huge bird called Gastornis.

Scientists said that a toe bone, discovered in the 1970s, was almost identical to fossil toe bones belonging to the same bird found in Wyoming, dating to the same time period. The fossils of Gastornis have also been discovered in Asia and Europe.

In a press release, study co-author Jaelyn Eberle, an associate professor in geological sciences at CU-Boulder, who carried out studies on fossil mammals, fishes and reptiles, said that they were aware that there were some bird fossils from up there, but they also knew that they were very rare. Eberle also mentioned that another scientist reported witnessing a fossil footprint on Ellesmere, though its particular specific location is known so far.

Furthermore, latest research on Gastornis has indicated that the bird was vegan and used its gigantic beak for breaking apart foliage, seeds, nuts and fruit.

The paper has also described another Ellesmere Island bird that belonged to the early Eocene, known as Presbyornis. Presbyornis was quite alike present day’s duck, goose and swan family, however, possessed long legs like a flamingo.