More than 16 million years ago in what is now New Zealand, a giant bird died and sank to the bottom of a lake. Preserved in layers of sand and gray-blue clay, the bones of this behemoth have since been unearthed, revealing what is now the largest parrot known to science.

Of the 350 parrot species alive today, the heaviest is the kakapo, a flightless bird also native to New Zealand. But the extinct parrot, dubbed Heracles inexpectatus, crushes the kakapo’s record: Described from two fossilized leg bones, the bird would have weighed 15 pounds and stood roughly three feet tall.

That’s tall enough to be “able to pick the belly button lint out of your belly button,” says