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Elephant birds have been extinct since at least the 17th century. Étienne de Flacourt, a French governor of Madagascar during the 1640s and 1650s, mentioned an ostrich-like bird, said to inhabit unpopulated regions, although it is unclear whether he was repeating folk tales from generations earlier.
The large size of elephant bird eggs means that they would have required substantial amounts of calcium, which is usually taken from a reservoir in the medullary bone in the femurs of female birds. Possible remnants of this tissue have been described from the femurs of A. maximus. [13] Aepyornis eggs, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris
Aepyornis maximus (the giant elephant-bird) was a giant flightless bird that lived in Madagascar. It became extinct probably in the 17th or 18th century; it is thought that it was hunted excessively by humans. The bird was more than 2 metres (6 ft 7 in) tall, and its egg weighed about 10 kilograms (22 lb). Fragments of the eggs are still found. [2]
The Malagasy crowned eagle (Stephanoaetus mahery), [1] also known as the Madagascar crowned hawk-eagle, is an extinct large bird of prey endemic to Madagascar. It has been proposed that this bird, combined with elephant bird eggs, were the source of sightings of the mythical Roc .
The extinction of the elephant bird is attributed to human activity. The birds were once widespread, but deforestation and the hunting of the bird's eggs led to the species' decline. [3] Attenborough compares the factors that led to the extinction of the elephant bird with the threats facing critically endangered species in the present. [3]
There were reported elephant bird sightings at least in folklore memory as Étienne de Flacourt wrote in 1658. [8] Its egg, live or subfossilised , was known as early as 1420, when sailors to the Cape of Good Hope found eggs of the roc, according to a caption in the 1456 Fra Mauro map of the world, which says that the roc "carries away an ...
Giant elephant bird: Aepyornis maximus: Central and southern Madagascar Most recent remains dated to 1040-1380 CE. [21] A 2018 study moved the largest elephant bird specimens to the genus Vorombe, [22] but a 2023 genetic study regarded Vorombe as synonymous with Aepyornis maximus. [23]
Habitat destruction and hunting have threatened many of Madagascar's endemic species or driven them to extinction. [33] The island's elephant birds, a family of endemic giant ratites, became extinct in 17th century or earlier, most probably due to human hunting of adult birds and poaching of their large eggs for food. [34]