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The tops of elephant bird skulls display punctuated marks, which may have been attachment sites for fleshy structures or head feathers. [18] Mullerornis is the smallest of the elephant birds, with a body mass of around 80 kilograms (180 lb), [16] with its skeleton much less robustly built than Aepyornis. [19]
Aepyornis is an extinct genus of elephant bird formerly endemic to Madagascar. The genus had two species, the smaller A. hildebrandti and the larger A. maximus, which is possibly the largest bird ever to have lived. [2] Its closest living relative is the New Zealand kiwi. [3]
In biology, taxonomic rank (which some authors prefer to call nomenclatural rank [1] because ranking is part of nomenclature rather than taxonomy proper, according to some definitions of these terms) is the relative or absolute level of a group of organisms (a taxon) in a hierarchy that reflects evolutionary relationships.
The largest bird in the fossil record may be the extinct elephant birds (Vorombe/Aepyornis) of Madagascar, which were related to the ostrich. They exceeded 3 m (9.8 ft) in height and 500 kg (1,100 lb) in weight. [42] The last of the elephant birds became extinct approximately 1000 years ago.
Family †Aepyornithidae Bonaparte 1853 (elephant birds) Genus † Aepyornis St. Hilaire 1850 (4 species) † Aepyornis gracilis Monnier 1913 (gracile elephant bird)
An elephant never forgets might be an exaggeration, but elephants actually have the largest brains of all land mammals. An adult elephant’s weighty brain reaches nearly 11 pounds- that’s 8 ...
Recently it has been determined that the elephant birds of the extinct order Aepyornithiformes were the closest relatives of the kiwis, and therefore are part of this group. [4] The implication is that ratites had lost flight independently in each group, as the elephant birds are the only novaeratites found outside Oceania. [4]
Twinning, or, having two babies per pregnancy, is extremely rare in elephants. Elephant gestations result in twins about 1% of the time. Unfortunately, even when both calves survive birth, both ...