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Vouronpatra, a large bird that haunts the Amphora (marsh in the central highlands) and lays eggs like those of the ostrich; so that people from these places do not take it, he looks for the most isolated places.
Admiral Étienne de Flacourt in his Histoire de la Grande Isle of Madagascar, 1658.
Eggs of elephant birds.D.Bressan
In 1840, an anonymous explorer sent remains of a gigantic egg from the African island of Madagascar to French zoologist Paul Gervais, who identified the fragments as belonging to an ostrich egg. Only in 1851, the existence of a giant bird still unknown was announced at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, based on the discovery of a full egg, six times bigger than an ostrich egg. Fifteen years later, the first skeleton of an elephant, belonging to the family Aepyornithidae, was discovered. Since then, various species have been described, based on more or less fragmentary fossils. Aepyornis maximus, described by the French naturalist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1851, has often been considered the largest bird in the world. In 1894, British scientist C.W. Andrews described an even larger species, Aepyornis titan, but since there is often sexual dimorphism in birds, this species was rejected A. maximus. Outside the genre Aepyornis, Aepyornithidae also includes the genus Mullerornis. However, over time, the exact taxonomy of elephants was very confusing. Some naturalists have used very fragmentary materials to describe new species. Some reconstructed skeletons have been embellished, adding bones, especially in the neck, to size the supposed animal. Some proposed elephant species were not even based on skeletal remains, but only on the description of the egg fragments.
Historical photograph showing mounted skeletons of a modern ostrich, in the middle of an elephant of the genus Aepyornisand on the far right another elephant of the genus Mullerornis.FTM Archive
Zoologist James Hansford and Samuel Turvey have attempted to solve this puzzle by measuring hundreds of elephant bird bones from museums around the world, also using computer models to reconstruct reconstructions. fragmentary bones. Based on the statistical distribution of the size and anatomical characteristics of the bones, the team concludes that the family Aepyornithidae comprises three genera and at least four distinct species. A part Aepyornis (with two species) and Mullerornis (a species), the size distribution suggests that a third kind of elephant bird, larger than the two genera mentioned previously, existed in Madagascar about 1000 years ago.
The new genre established Vorombe, which means "big bird" in Malagasy language, also includes the largest bird ever discovered. Titan of Vorombe weighed up to 1760 pounds (seven times a modern ostrich), standing 9.8 feet tall. The research describing the discovery is published as open access paper.
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Vouronpatra, a large bird that haunts the Amphora (marsh in the central highlands) and lays eggs like those of the ostrich; so that the people of these places do not take it, he looks for the most solitary places.
Admiral Étienne de Flacourt in his Histoire de la Grande Isle of Madagascar, 1658.
Eggs of elephant birds.D.Bressan
In 1840, an anonymous explorer sent remains of a gigantic egg from the African island of Madagascar to French zoologist Paul Gervais, who identified the fragments as belonging to an ostrich egg. Only in 1851, the existence of a giant bird still unknown was announced at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, based on the discovery of a full egg, six times bigger than an ostrich egg. Fifteen years later, the first skeleton of an elephant, belonging to the family Aepyornithidae, was discovered. Since then, various species have been described, based on more or less fragmentary fossils. Aepyornis maximus, described by the French naturalist Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire in 1851, has often been considered the largest bird in the world. In 1894, British scientist C.W. Andrews described an even larger species, Aepyornis titan, but since there is often sexual dimorphism in birds, this species was rejected A. maximus. Outside the genre Aepyornis, Aepyornithidae also includes the genus Mullerornis. However, over time, the exact taxonomy of elephants was very confusing. Some naturalists have used very fragmentary materials to describe new species. Some reconstructed skeletons have been embellished, adding bones, especially in the neck, to size the supposed animal. Some proposed elephant species were not even based on skeletal remains, but only on the description of the egg fragments.
Historical photograph showing mounted skeletons of a modern ostrich, in the middle of an elephant of the genus Aepyornisand on the far right another elephant of the genus Mullerornis.FTM Archive
Zoologist James Hansford and Samuel Turvey have attempted to solve this puzzle by measuring hundreds of elephant bird bones from museums around the world, also using computer models to reconstruct reconstructions. fragmentary bones. Based on the statistical distribution of the size and anatomical characteristics of the bones, the team concludes that the family Aepyornithidae comprises three genera and at least four distinct species. A part Aepyornis (with two species) and Mullerornis (a species), the size distribution suggests that a third kind of elephant bird, larger than the two genera mentioned previously, existed in Madagascar about 1000 years ago.
The new genre established Vorombe, which means "big bird" in Malagasy language, also includes the largest bird ever discovered. Titan of Vorombe weighed up to 1760 pounds (seven times a modern ostrich), standing 9.8 feet tall. The research describing the discovery is published as open access paper.
