Elephant Bird

Elephant Bird

Elephant birds are an extinct family of flightless birds found only on the island of Madagascar and comprising the genera Aepyornis and Mullerornis.

They are among the heaviest known birds (Dromornis stirtoni of Australia reached a similar weight). The reasons for and timings of their extinctions remain unclear, although there are written accounts of elephant bird sightings on the island in the 17th century.

Read more about Elephant Bird:  Description, Species, Taxonomy and Biogeography

Famous quotes containing the words elephant and/or bird:

    So slowly the hot elephant hearts
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    hiding their fire.
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    The bird is not in its ounces and inches, but in its relations to Nature; and the skin or skeleton you show me, is no more a heron, than a heap of ashes or a bottle of gases into which his body has been reduced, is Dante or Washington.
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