#Elephant Bird

[herpsandbirds]

what do you know about the biggest birds that are now extinct?

Well, I think you must be talking about the Elephant BIrd!

Giant Elephantbird (Aepyornis maximus), order Aepyornithiformes, were found in Madagascar

EXTINCT. (~1000 CE)

Closest living relatives are probably the kiwis.

Largest living species of bird to have existed, growing up to 3 m (9.8 ft) in height, and weighing up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs). (They were, of course, flightless).

Extinction was most likely caused by overhunting.

These birds were generalist feeders, probably feeding a great number of seeds, fruit, and possibly small animals.

They may have been nocturnal.

[nazrigar]

To those that celebrate, have a Happy Easter!

Context: Elephant birds only went extinct around 800-1100 AD/CE, meaning that they were contemporaries to the early middle age civilizations of that era. They also laid the biggest eggs of any animal.

So here, a Norman Knight, through impossible means, got an elephant bird egg, and praises the heavens as he painted the BIGGEST easter egg!

[he-who-needs-to-be-silenced]

T H I S T H I NG

this. This is the closest living relative to the elephant birds

You know, the biggest birb ever

I think

like what

Why are ratites like this

[opulentcryptids]

Birbs

[jorgeburgos8]

Deep in the jungle, people sometimes say that trees come to life, and in fact, they are not entirely wrong.

[trigonomicon]

Museum Drawings VII: probably the final one in a long while, as available time for aimlessly doodling in museums is getting low.

[mesozoicmarket]

A fossilized bird eggshell from an elephant bird or Aepyornis sp. from Itampolo, Madagascar. While eggs of these massive paleognath birds were seen in the past at high end auctions, much of what still remains on the market are isolated eggshells which are often used to make composite eggs. This species of flightless ratite bird was hunted to extinction by humans relatively recently around 1000 years ago. Unfortunately, there are no surviving members of the elephant bird clade with their closest living relatives being kiwis.

[sinosauropteryx--prima]

National Fossil: Madagascar

Madagascar is Africa‘s biggest island, and as most of you will know: Islands are strange places with strange animals. This was just as true in the past so there are quite a few interesting contenders for you to chose from.

As always, it could be a fossil that is just exceptionally well preserved and beautiful, had a huge impact on paleontology and our knowledge of the past, is very common/representative of the area, is beloved and famous in the public eye, is just a very unique and interesting find or has any other justification.

Coelurosauravus: First of, we have a small gliding reptile that lived during the Permian, about 250 million years ago. It probably could glide between trees using wings that were spanned open by “bony rods“, which were unrelated to other parts of the skeleton. This is pretty unique, because most other gliding or flying animals repurpose already existing bones into wings (Art by Charlène Letenneur)

Majungasaurus: There are quite a few dinosaurs known from Madagascar, especially from the late Cretaceous. The most famous one of them is probably the up to 8 m long theropod (group of meat-eating dinosaurs) Majungasaurus. Their remains have first been found in the late 19th century (although wrongly assigned at the time), and since then many more fossils have been found, making Majungasaurus one of the better studied theropods in the southern hemisphere (Art by Gabriel Ugueto)

Beelzebufo: Speaking of late Cretaceous - look, it‘s everyone‘s favorite frog, the Devil‘s Toad! Not only has it an objectively awesome name, it is also the biggest known frog of all time. If any frog stands a chance to win one of these votes, I think it‘s this one (Art from Prehistoric Planet)

Archaeoindris: We‘re making a big time jump all the way to the almost-present for the next contestant. Archaeoindris only became extinct around 350 BCE, making it‘s fossil status maybe a bit questionable. However, no group of animals feels more representative of Madagascar than the lemurs, and Archaeoindris was the biggest of all of them - about the size of a male gorilla. Btw, there were many big and strange lemurs that lived in Madagascar until very recently, when another group of primates showed up on the island and changed that (Art by Nix Illustrations).

Aepyornis: Even more recent (up until about 1000 AD), but no less extinct because of us are the elephant birds. Birds becoming flightless and gigantic is a very common thing to happen on islands and this might be the most extreme example of it, with the biggest elephant birds being about 3 m tall and somewhere between 300 and 1000 kg heavy (Illustration by Matt Martyniuk)

[pad-wubbo]

elephant bird (they weren't actually this colour)

CC-BY-SA 4.0

[sayjoisme84]

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A post shared by Buffalo Museum of Science (@buffaloscience)

Buffalo found out is had one and of abt 40 intact elephant bird eggs worldwide

[herpsandbirds]

If you were in danger, what bird would you trust to save you / guard you from the enemy?

Oh thats an easy one!!

Elephant Bird (Aepyornis maximus), family Aepyornis, order Aepyornithiformes, Found in Madagascar

EXTINCT (Sometime around 1000 AD)

These huge birds reached a height of up to 3 (9.8 ft), and a weight of up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lb).

illustration by George de Lodge

[pizzashowgirls]

Over the Garden Wall by Julia Tveritina, via Cartoon Network

[troythecatfish]

Source: Cas3yarttv on YouTube

[aardwolfpack]

Not the most popular candy mascot, but not lacking in originality.

Dinornis, 1905

[oh-no-its-bird]

I will NEVER get over Naruto marrying into the slavery clan then just never ever addressing the slavery going on unacknowledged in the background. Insane.

He really said "we should all be friends and imprisoning people (biiju) is bad! Unless..."