Giant elephant named biggest bird ever

A species of bird 10 feet tall and weighing up to 1760 pounds has been awarded the title of the world's largest bird.

The Vorombe titan, which means "big bird" in Malagasy and Greek, is an elephant that lived in Madagascar at the end of the Quaternary and disappeared in the 17th century. These giant ostrich cousins, unable to fly, were previously known from two genera, Aepyornis and Mullerornis.

The researchers analyzed hundreds of elephant bird bones from museums around the world to discover the world's largest bird. In 1894, British scientist C.W. Andrews described an unusually large species of elephant bird, Aepyornis titan. But it was originally confused with another species of elephant bird, called Aepyornis maximus.

A final in-depth analysis of the Zoological Society of London reveals that the Titan-bird was indeed a distinct species. The shape and size of his bones are so different from those of all other elephants that he has also been placed in his new genre Vorombe, which is an extremely rare event.

"The elephant birds were the largest of Madagascar's megafauna and arguably one of the most important in the history of the island's evolution – even more so than the lemurs. Indeed, large animals have a huge impact on the ecosystem in which they live by controlling vegetation by eating plants, spreading biomass and dispersing seeds through defecation. Madagascar still suffers today from the effects of the extinction of these birds. Senior author of the ZSL Institute of Zoology, said Dr. James Hansford.

The researchers used a combination of advanced techniques to determine the identity of the titan bird and solve a 150-year-old taxonomic node that will help us better understand the enigmatic megafauna bird.

"Without an accurate understanding of the diversity of species of the past, we can not understand the evolution or the ecology of unique island systems such as Madagascar, nor exactly replenish what has been lost since the past few years. arrival of the man on these islands, "said co-author, Professor Samuel Turvey of ZSL. "Knowing the history of biodiversity loss is critical to determining how to conserve threatened species today."