Elephant birds
Conservation status
Extinct  (16th century)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Chordata Class: Aves Superorder: Paleognathae Order: Struthioniformes Family: †Aepyornithidae Bonaparte, 1853
Genera
†Aepyornis †Mullerornis Aepyornis skeleton. ... The conservation status of a species is an indicator of the likelihood of that species remaining extant either in the present day or the near future. ... For other uses, see Extinction (disambiguation). ... Scientific classification redirects here. ... For other uses, see Animal (disambiguation). ... Classes See below Chordates (phylum Chordata) are a group of animals that includes the vertebrates, together with several closely related invertebrates. ... For other meanings of bird, see bird (disambiguation). ... Orders Lithornithiformes Ambiornithiformes Gansuiformes Paleocursornithiformes Dinornithiformes Aepyornithiformes Struthoniformes Rheiformes Casuariiformes Apterygiformes Tinamiformes The Paleognathae or paleognaths (old jaws) are one of the two living superorders of birds. ... Families Struthionidae Casuariidae Dinornithidae Apterygidae Rheidae A ratite is any of a diverse group of large, flightless birds of Gondwanian origin, most of them now extinct. ... Charles Lucien Jules Laurent Bonaparte (May 24, 1803 – July 29, 1857) was a French naturalist and ornithologist. ... 1853 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... For other uses, see Genus (disambiguation). ...

Elephant birds are an extinct family of flightless birds comprising the genera Aepyornis and Mullerornis. For other uses, see Extinction (disambiguation). ... The hierarchy of scientific classification In biological classification, family (Latin: familia, plural familiae) is a rank, or a taxon in that rank. ... ... For other uses, see Bird (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Genus (disambiguation). ...

Dimensions

The elephant birds, which were giant ratites native to Madagascar, have been extinct since at least the 16th century. Aepyornis was the world's largest bird, believed to have been over three meters (10 feet) tall and weighing close to half a ton (454 kilograms, or 1,000 pounds), although it was exceeded in skull size (28 inches) by an unclassified Phorusrhacoid unearthed in October 2006.[1] Remains of Aepyornis adults and eggs have been found; in some cases the eggs have a circumference of over one meter (three feet) and a length up to 34 cm (Mlíkovsky, 2003). The egg volume is about 160 times greater than a chicken egg (Hawkins and Goodman, 2003: 1026). Families Struthionidae (ostriches) Rheidae (rheas) Casuariidae (emus etc. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Synonyms Phororhacosidae Ameghino, 1889 Pelecyornidae Ameghino, 1891 Brontornithidae Moreno & Mercerat, 1891 Darwinornithidae Moreno & Mercerat, 1891 Stereornithidae Moreno & Mercerat, 1891 Phororhacidae Lydekker, 1893 (unjustified emendation) Patagornithidae Mercerat, 1897 Hermosiornidae Rovereto, 1914 Psilopteridae Dolgopol de Saez, 1927 Devincenziidae Kraglievich, 1932 Hermosiorniidae Kraglievich, 1932 (unjustified emendation) Mesembriorniidae Kraglievich, 1932 Hermosiornithidae Wetmore, 1934 (unjustified...

Species diversity

Four species are usually accepted in the genus Aepyornis today; A. hildebrandti, A. gracilis, A. medius and A. maximus (Brodkorb, 1963), but the validity of some is disputed, with numerous authors treating them all in just one species, A. maximus. Up to four species are also generally included in Mullerornis (see below; Hawkins and Goodman, 2003: 1029). Because there is no rainforest fossil record in Madagascar, it is not known for certain if it is likely that there were species adapted to dense forest dwelling, just like the cassowary in Australia and New Guinea today. However, some rainforest fruits with thick, highly sculptured endocarps, such as that of the currently undispersed and highly threatened forest coconut palm Voanioala gerardii may have been adapted for passage through ratite guts, and the fruit of some palm species are indeed dark bluish purple (e.g. Ravenea louvelii and Satranala decussilvae), just like many cassowary-dispersed fruits (Dransfield and Beentje, 1995: 21, 63, 112). For the novel, see Rainforest (novel). ... For other uses, see Fossil (disambiguation). ... Species Casuarius casuarius Casuarius unappendiculatus Casuarius bennetti Cassowaries (genus Casuarius) are very large flightless birds native to the tropical forests of New Guinea and northeastern Australia. ... Endocarp is the hard inner layer of the pericarp of some fruits that contains the seed. ... For other uses, see Coconut (disambiguation). ... Species See text Ravenea (Majesty Palm) is a genus of 17 species of palms, all endemic to Madagascar and the Comoros. ...

Biogeography

Like the cassowary, ostrich, rhea, emu and kiwi, Mullerornis and Aepyornis were ratites; they could not fly, and their breast bones had no keel. Because Madagascar and Africa separated too long ago for the ratite lineage (see Yoder and Nowak, 2006), Aepyornis had been thought to have dispersed and become flightless and gigantic in situ (van Tuinen et al., 1998). A land bridge from elsewhere in Gondwana to Madagascar for the elephant bird-ostrich lineage was probably available around 85 million years ago (Hay et al. 1999). However, subfossil Aepyornis fragments have not yet been successfully sequenced for mitochondrial DNA (Cooper et al. 2001). Species Casuarius casuarius Casuarius unappendiculatus Casuarius bennetti Cassowaries (genus Casuarius) are very large flightless birds native to the tropical forests of New Guinea and northeastern Australia. ... Binomial name Linnaeus, 1758 Distribution of Ostriches. ... Species R. americana R. pennata The Rhea, also known as ñandú (pronounced ) in Spanish, or ema in Portuguese, is a large flightless ratite bird native to South America. ... For other uses, see EMU. Binomial name (Latham, 1790) The Emu has been recorded in the areas shown in orange. ... Species See text. ... The sternum (from Greek στέρνον, sternon, chest) or breastbone is a long, flat bone located in the center of the thorax (chest). ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into bird skeleton. ... A world map showing the continent of Africa Africa is the worlds second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. ... An evolutionary lineage (also called a clade) is composed of species, taxa, or individuals that are related by descent from a common ancestor. ... In situ is a Latin phrase meaning in the place. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... For other uses of Gondwana and Gondwanaland, see Gondwana (disambiguation). ... Mitochondrial DNA (some captions in German) Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is the DNA located in organelles called mitochondria. ...

Supposed remains of "aepyornithid" eggs found on the eastern Canary Islands represent a major biogeographical enigma. These islands were probably not connected to mainland Africa when elephant birds were alive. During episodes of very low sea levels, there may have been a land bridge, and at least for some time, there probably was an archipelago between Fuerteventura/Lanzarote and the African coast. This would have enabled flightless birds to cross over to these islands by chance. Still, there is no indication that elephant birds evolved outside Madagascar, and today, the Canary Island eggshells are considered to belong to extinct North African birds that may or may not have been ratites (Eremopezus/Psammornis), or even Pelagornithidae, prehistoric seabirds of immense size^{[citation needed]}. This article is about the islands in the Atlantic Ocean. ... Biogeography is the science which deals with patterns of species distribution and the processes that result in such patterns. ... The Mergui Archipelago The Archipelago Sea, situated between the Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland, the largest archipelago in the world by the number of islands. ... Morro Jable Fuerteventura, a Spanish island, is one of the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. ... Lanzarote is also the title of a novella by Michel Houellebecq, translated into English by Frank Wynne. ...  Northern Africa (UN subregion)  geographic, including above North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, separated by the Sahara from Sub-Saharan Africa. ... Genera Osteodontornis The Pelagornithidae or pseudo-tooth birds were a family of large seabirds from the order Pelecaniformes, which were common worldwide from the Eocene (or possibly Paleocene) up to the Miocene. ... The Sooty Tern is highly aerial and marine and will spend years flying at sea without returning to land. ...

Extinction

It is often believed that the extinction of the Aepyornis was an effect of human activity. However, the birds were probably not only elusive but widespread, occurring from the northern to the southern tip of Madagascar (Hawkins and Goodman, 2003: 1028), yet their eggs were vulnerable. A recent archaeological study found remains of eggshells among the remains of human fires (see Pearson and Godden 2002: 124), suggesting that the eggs regularly provided meals for entire families, but it is not known if there were taboos ("fady") against the killing of adult birds, although there is indeed evidence that they were killed. Animals arriving with the human colonists, such as rats and dogs, may also have preyed upon the eggs of the ratite population and reduced their viability. For the Taboo party game, see Taboo (game). ...

The exact time period when they died out is also not certain; tales of these giant birds may have persisted for centuries in folk memory. There is archaeological evidence of Aepyornis from a radiocarbon-dated bone at 1880 +/- 70 BP (= c. 120 AD) with signs of butchering, and on the basis of radiocarbon dating of shells, about 1000 BP (= c. 1000 AD) (see discussion and references in Hawkins and Goodman, 2003: 1029). An alternative theory states that humans hunted the elephant birds to extinction in a very short time for such a large landmass (the blitzkrieg hypothesis) or is the possible secondary effect of human impact by possible transfer of hyperdiseases from human commensals such as chickens and guineafowl. The bones of these domesticated fowl have been found in subfossil sites in the island (MacPhee and Marx, 1997: 188), such as Ambolisatra (Madagascar), where Mullerornis sp. and Aepyornis maximus have been reported (Goodman and Rakotozafy, 1997). Also reported by these authors, ratite remains have been found in W-SW Madagascar, at Belo-sur-Mer (A. medius, Mullerornis rudis), Bemafandry (M. agilis) and Lamboharana (Mullerornis sp.). A third viable theory to explain the demise of the giant elephant birds (as apparently first pointed by Attenborough (1961: 43)) is climate change, related to an increased drying of Madagascar during the Holocene (to which the impact of humans might have been additive). Folk memory is a term often used to describe stories, folklore or myths about past events that are passed orally from generation to generation. ... Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring isotope carbon-14 (14C) to determine the age of carbonaceous materials up to about 60,000 years. ... It has been suggested that New World Pleistocene extinctions be merged into this article or section. ... Introduction Eighteen thousand years ago at the height of the last ice age in North America the land not ice covered looks like a park with mixed trees and grass There are mastodons and mammoths whose young are being killed by massive lions and sabertooth cats. ... Common Clownfish (Amphiprion ocellaris) in their magnificent sea anemone (Heteractis magnifica) home. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... Genera Agelastes Numida Guttera Acryllium The guineafowl are a family of birds in the same order as the pheasants, turkeys and other game birds. ... Subfossil is attributed to bones or whole skeletons (and, in general all materials having living parts that can become fossil) whose fossilization process is not complete, either for lack of time or because the condition in which bones were buried were non optimal for fossilization. ... Sir David Frederick Attenborough, OM, CH, CVO, CBE, FRS, FZS (born on 8 May 1926 in London, England) is one of the worlds most acclaimed broadcasters and naturalists. ... Introduction Eighteen thousand years ago at the height of the last ice age in North America the land not ice covered looks like a park with mixed trees and grass There are mastodons and mammoths whose young are being killed by massive lions and sabertooth cats. ... The Holocene epoch is a geological period, which began approximately 11,550 calendar years BP (about 9600 BC) and continues to the present. ...

Name

English name

Aepyornis maximus is commonly known as the 'elephant bird', a term that apparently originated from Marco Polo's account of the rukh in 1298, although he was apparently referring to an eagle-like bird strong enough to "seize an elephant with its talons" (Pearson and Godden, 2002: 121). Sightings of eggs of elephant birds by early sailors (e.g. text on the Fra Mauro map of 1467-69, if not attributable to ostriches) could also have been erroneously attributed to a giant raptor from Madagascar. The legend of the roc could also have originated from sightings of such a giant subfossil eagle related to the African Crowned Eagle, which has been described in the genus Stephanoaetus from Madagascar (Goodman, 1994), being large enough to carry off large primates; today, lemurs still retain a fear of aerial predators such as these. Marco Polo (September 15, 1254[1] – January 9, 1324 at earliest but no later than June 1325[2]) was a Venetian trader and explorer who gained fame for his worldwide travels, recorded in the book Il Milione (The Million or The Travels of Marco Polo). ... This article is about the Roc, a mythical bird. ... The Fra Mauro map (1459) in Venice (inverted, South is normally at the top). ... This article is about the Roc, a mythical bird. ... Subfossil is attributed to bones or whole skeletons (and, in general all materials having living parts that can become fossil) whose fossilization process is not complete, either for lack of time or because the condition in which bones were buried were non optimal for fossilization. ... Genera Several, see text. ... This article is about the African Eagle known as the Crowned Eagle. ... Binomial name Stephanoaetus coronatus (Linnaeus, 1766) Crowned Eagle range Wikispecies has information related to: Crowned Hawk-Eagle The Crowned Eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus), more precisely known as the Crowned Hawk-eagle, is a very large, powerful, crested bird of prey (80-90 cm approx) found in tropical Africa south of the... Superfamilies and Families Cheirogaleoidea Cheirogaleidae Lemuroidea Lemuridae Lepilemuridae Indriidae Lemurs make up the infraorder Lemuriformes and are members of a group of primates known as prosimians. ...

Malagasy name

The ancient Malagasy name for the bird is Vorompatra, meaning "bird of the Ampatres". The Ampatres are today known as the Androy region of southern Madagascar (Pearson and Godden, 2002: 139) [2]. Indeed, Étienne de Flacourt wrote (1658), "vouropatra - a large bird which haunts the Ampatres and lays eggs like the ostriches; so that the people of these places may not take it, it seeks the most lonely places". [3]. Etienne de Flacourt Etienne de Flacourt (1607–1660) was a French governor of Madagascar, born at Orléans in 1607. ...

Eggs

Occasionally the subfossilized eggs are found intact. The National Geographic Society in Washington holds a specimen of an Aepyornis egg which was given to Luis Marden in 1967. The specimen is intact and contains an embryonic skeleton of the unborn bird. A cast of the 'Aepyornis' egg is preserved at the Grant Museum of Zoology at London University, and has been adopted by Claudia, the niece of the author and illustrator Charlotte Cory. The BBC television personality David Attenborough owns an almost complete fossilized eggshell, which he pieced together from fragments he himself had found in Madagascar. This article is about the organization. ... Aerial photo (looking NW) of the Washington Monument and the White House in Washington, DC. Washington, D.C., officially the District of Columbia (also known as D.C.; Washington; the Nations Capital; the District; and, historically, the Federal City) is the capital city and administrative district of the United... Luis Marden (born Annibale Luigi Paragallo) (January 25, 1913—March 3, 2003) was an Italian-American photographer, explorer, writer, filmmaker, diver, navigator, and linguist who worked for National Geographic Magazine. ... For other uses, see BBC (disambiguation). ...

Reconstruction of Elephant Bird Egg, Ipswich Museum, England

Image File history File linksMetadata Elephantbird-egg. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Elephantbird-egg. ...

Elephant Bird Species

Genus Aepyornis Species Aepyornis hildebrandti Aepyornis medius Aepyornis maximus Aepyornis is an extinct genus of flightless bird. ...

• Aepyornis gracilis Monnier, 1913
• Aepyornis hildebrandti Burckhardt, 1893

=Aepyornis mulleri Milne-Edwards & Grandidier , 1894

• Aepyornis maximus I. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, 1851

=Aepyornis modestus Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1869

=Aepyornis ingens Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1894

=Aepyornis titan Andrews, 1894

• Aepyornis medius Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1866

=Aepyornis grandidieri Rowley, 1867

=Aepyornis cursor Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1894

=Aepyornis lentus Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1894

Genus Mullerornis Alphonse Milne-Edwards (October 13, 1835 _ April 21, 1900) was a French ornithologist. ... Alfred Grandidier (December 20, 1836 - September 13, 1921) was a French naturalist and explorer. ...

• Mullerornis betsilei Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1894
• Mullerornis grandis Lamberton, 1934
• Mullerornis agilis Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1894
• Mullerornis rudis Milne-Edwards & Grandidier, 1894

=Flacourtia rudis Andrews, 1894

In literature

• Perhaps the Rukh is most well known from Sindbad the Sailor's encounter with one in "One Thousand and One Nights". Some scholars think the Roc is a distorted account of the Aepyornis.
• H.G. Wells wrote a short story entitled Aepyornis Island about the bird. It was published in The Complete Short Stories of H.G. Wells (ISBN 0-7538-0872-2). Full text.

H. G. Wells at the door of his house at Sandgate Herbert George Wells (September 21, 1866 - August 13, 1946) was an English writer best known for his science fiction novels such as The War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. ...

In Media

The Elephant Bird appears in Zoo Tycoon 2: Extinct Animals

References

• Attenborough, D. (1961). Zoo Quest to Madagascar. Lutterworth Press, London. 160 pp.
• Brodkorb, Pierce (1963): Catalogue of Fossil Birds Part 1 (Archaeopterygiformes through Ardeiformes). Bulletin of the Florida State Museum, Biological Sciences 7(4): 179-293. PDF fulltext
• Cooper, A., Lalueza-Fox, C., Anderson, S., Rambaut, A. and Austin, J. 2001. Complete mitochondrial genome sequences of two extinct moas clarify ratite evolution. Nature, 409: 704-7
• Dransfield, J. and Beentje, H. (1995). The Palms of Madagascar. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and The International Palm society. 475 pp. ISBN 0 947643 82 6.
• Flacourt E. de. (1658). Histoire de la grande île de Madagascar. Paris.
• Goodman, Steven M. (1994). Description of a new species of subfossil eagle from Madagascar: Stephanoaetus (Aves: Falconiformes) from the deposits of Ampasambazimba Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. 107: 421-428.
• Goodman, S.M. and Rakotozafy, L.M.A (1997). Subfossil birds from coastal sites in western and southwestern Madagascar. Pp. 257-279 in Goodman, S.M. and Patterson, B.D. Natural Change and Human Impact in Madagascar. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London. 432 pp.
• Hawkins, A.F.A. and Goodman, S. M. (2003). P. 1019-1044 in Goodman, S.M. and Benstead, J.P. (eds). The Natural History of Madagascar. University of Chicago Press.
• Hay, W.W., DeConto, R.M., Wold, C.N., Wilson, K.M. and Voigt, S. 1999. Alternative global Cretaceous paleogeography. PP. 1-47 in Barrera, E. and Johnson, C.C. (eds). Evolution of the Cretaceous Ocean Climate System. Geological Society of America Special Papers, Boulder, Colorado.
• MacPhee, R.D.E. and Marx, P.A. (1997). The 40,000 year plague: humans, hyperdisease, and first-contact extinctions. Pp. 169-217 in Goodman, S.M. and Patterson, B.D. Natural Change and Human Impact in Madagascar. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington and London. 432 pp.
• Mlíkovsky, J. 2003: Eggs of extinct aepyornithids (Aves: Aepyornithidae) of Madagascar: size and taxonomic identity. Sylvia, 39: 133–138.
• van Tuinen, Marcel, Sibley, Charles G. and Hedges, S. Blair (1998). Phylogeny and Biogeography of Ratite Birds Inferred from DNA Sequences of the Mitochondrial Ribosomal Genes. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 15(4): 370–376. [available at http://www.stanford.edu/group/hadlylab/images/Lab%20Members/Marcel/MBE98.pdf]
• Yoder, Anne D. and Nowak, Michael D. 2006. Has Vicariance or Dispersal Been the Predominant Biogeographic Force in Madagascar? Only Time Will Tell. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 37: 405-431. (doi: 10.1146/annurev.ecolsys.37.091305.110239).
• http://digimorph.org/specimens/Aepyornis_maximus/
• http://www.geocities.com/vorompatra/index.html
• Fossil Aepyornithidae

See also

• Island gigantism
• Late Quaternary prehistoric birds
• New World Pleistocene extinctions
• Pleistocene megafauna
• Roc

Island gigantism is a biological phenomenon by which the size of animals isolated on an island increases dramatically over generations. ... Prehistoric birds are various taxa of birds that became extinct before recorded history, or more precisely, before they could be studied alive by bird scientists. ... Introduction Eighteen thousand years ago at the height of the last ice age in North America the land not ice covered looks like a park with mixed trees and grass There are mastodons and mammoths whose young are being killed by massive lions and sabertooth cats. ... It has been suggested that New World Pleistocene extinctions be merged into this article or section. ... This article is about the Roc, a mythical bird. ...

Gallery

Aepyornis