Aepyornis titanium more †

Elephant bird

The name of the elephant bird probably rises from the Arab narrations bird skirt, which could pack and into air lift allegedly an elephant.

The elephant bird probably reached a size of 3 m and a weight of up to 500 kg. It had very strong legs, which ended in three toes, which spread themselves far, in order to distribute the high body weight better. The thick, strongly extended thigh bones point on the fact that the bird could not run particularly fast.

It put eggs with a length of over 30 cm and contents of approx. 9 litres.

The spreading was exclusively limited to Madagascar. There the elephant bird probably existed since the Pleistozaen, before approx. 1 - 2 million years, until it became extinct by pursuit by humans around 1650.