Bird of the Week 7/7 - 7/11

Should we bring back this bird?

This week’s birds are the: Elephant birds

Elephant bird on the left. There are other hilarious guesses as to what this bird looked like on the internet too…. P.S. This week’s bird is an updated rerun from 2024 - photo cred

1. These birds were members of an extinct flightless order that once loomed large in Madagascar. There were actually 11 species referred to collectively as “elephant birds,” all of which weighed over 180 pounds.

2. Weighing in at a colossal (I’ll come back to this) 1,500+ pounds, the largest of the elephant birds (Aepyornis maximus) was about 10 feet tall. It was likely the largest bird in the world when it went extinct around 1,000 CE. Some people even think it was the largest bird to EVER exist.

3. Guess why it went extinct? I’ll give you a hint: what would you do if you were a hungry human and there were giant chickens with giant eggs running around your island?

4. That’s right, it was almost certainly humans who caused the extinctions. Human migration to the island started to arrive around 350 CE, and it didn’t take long before they upset the ecological structure of the island. In addition to the birds, they also took out some other giants, like some big primates and hippos.

5. In the end, their eggs were probably just too tempting. They had about 2.5 GALLONS of fluid inside a single egg. Wow. (Fossil version below)

6. BONUS *NOT* FACT: I think Colossal Biosciences – a company that aims to bring back extinct species – should focus on bringing back this colossal bird instead of their current focus species, the not-colossal Dodo (really I don’t think they should be “bringing back” any species, but that diatribe is for another time).

Have a great week!