The largest bird in the world weighed as much as a giraffe

The largest
The bird that has already traveled the surface of the Earth is officially the "Titan de Vorombe", a previously unidentified elephant species that once roamed the island of Madagascar.

Literally meaning "big bird" in Malagasy and Greek, the giant creature could weigh more than 1700 pounds and was nearly 10 feet tall,
a new study released Wednesday at Royal Society Open Science found.

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"They would have dominated people," James Hansford, the senior author of the study and a paleontologist at the
Zoological Society of London (ZSL), told Agence France Presse. "They certainly could not fly because they could not bear their weight."

One of these specimens weighed about 1,895 pounds, about the same as an adult giraffe, AFP noted.

Elephant birds have stomped across Madagascar for 60 million years until they are hunted to extinction about 1,000 years ago, wrote the author. 39; AFP.

The title of "largest bird in the world" has been at the center of rigorous studies and debates for decades. But after analyzing hundreds of elephant bird bones from museums around the world, ZSL researchers found convincing evidence that the Vorombe Titan was actually the biggest, removing the title to Aepyornis maximus.

The researchers also conducted the first taxonomic reassessment of the family of elephant birds in more than 80 years. They discovered that there were actually three kinds of elephants instead of two, and four different species instead of 15, according to the New York Times.

"The elephant birds were the largest of Madagascar's megafauna and one of the most important of the [island’s] the history of evolution – even more than lemurs, "said Hansford in a
Press release. "This is because 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." still suffers the effects of the extinction of these birds. "

The authors of the new article say their work can help conservation efforts in Madagascar, which is home to several critically endangered species.

"Without an accurate understanding of the diversity of past species, we can not understand the evolution or ecology of unique island systems such as Madagascar or replenish exactly what has disappeared since the arrival of the island." On these islands, "said Samuel Turvey of the ZSL Zoology Institute. said in the press release. "Knowing the history of biodiversity loss is essential in determining how to conserve threatened species today."