Last week sent a picture of the Argentine giant eagle, caused everyone to discuss the prehistoric giant bird, originally wanted to introduce the prehistoric giant bird, but a netizen saw Baidu said that the elephant bird is not the largest bird, in order to once again establish the status of the elephant bird "a brother in the bird", this issue we will introduce the largest bird in history: the elephant bird.
The discovery of elephant birds
Early discoveries of elephant bird bones and their huge eggs, pictured from the web
At the end of the 17th century, when France began to establish ports on the island of Madagascar, it gradually turned it into a colony. As the colonization deepened, the French began to study the natural and geological conditions of madagascar, and they found fossils of a large bird on the island. In 1851, the French zoologist Isidore Geoffroy saint-hilaire named the elephant bird (aepyornis) based on the huge figure shown by the fossils, meaning that it had the size of an elephant. Due to translation problems, elephant birds are sometimes referred to as "long birds".
The elephant bird belongs to the ornithischia, palate, ornithischia, elephant bird family, the elephant bird lives on the island of Madagascar today, and is a species endemic to the island. We are not sure exactly when elephant birds appeared, but they should have appeared in the Pleistocene, and it was not until the 17th century that the elephant birds were all extinct. The pedigree of the elephant bird has a long history, and its earliest ancestors can even be traced back to the time of the dinosaurs. Since madagascar was separated from the African continent long ago, the island's animals began to evolve independently at an early age, with occasional road bridges facilitating the exchange of species.
It belongs to the giant skeleton fossil of the elephant bird, and the pictures come and go to the network
Giants among birds
The elephant bird is a very large chocobo bird that looks like an enlarged ostrich. The elephant bird is more than 3 meters tall and weighs 500 kilograms, which is one of the best in the birds.
The elephant bird's head is slender, and it is not a predator at first glance, and the picture comes from the Internet
The elephant bird has a smaller head, a long beak, a swollen skull, and a pair of eyes on it. Like other large birds, the neck of the elephant bird is slender and curved, taking on an "s" shape. Elephant birds have flexible necks and hold their heads high in the air to help them feed. The elephant bird's body is strong, even a little fat, and its forelimbs are negligible, but its hind limbs are particularly strong. Don't look at the elephant bird with a large weight, but its running speed is not slow at all.
According to legend and the hair of its close relatives, ostriches, researchers believe that elephant birds have thick dark feathers and lighter hairs on their necks. The feathers of the elephant bird are mainly to keep warm, not camouflage, after all, it has no natural enemies.
The elephant bird model in the museum is huge and covered with furry feathers, and the picture comes from the Internet
The price of the dome is high
The elephant bird is not only huge, but the size of the eggs it lays is equally large. Elephant birds only lay one egg at a time, so each egg is precious. Although the elephant bird has become extinct, its eggs have survived. So far, several well-preserved elephant bird eggs have been found on the island of Madagascar, one of which is preserved in the History Museum of the University of Cambridge and the other in the University of London Museum of Zoology. The most famous elephant bird was discovered in 1967 by Louis Madden, this elephant bird egg is about 30 cm long and 21 cm in diameter, and its volume is equivalent to more than 100 eggs, making it the largest known bird egg. The most precious thing about the elephant egg that Madden found was that it contained the embryonic skeleton of an unborn baby elephant bird.
It is precisely because of the existence of embryonic bones that Madden's elephant bird eggs are extremely valuable, and at an auction held in London in April 2013, the elephant bird eggs became dazzling and were expected to fetch a high price of up to 300,000 yuan.
The elephant bird eggs that are ready for auction are really huge compared to the eggs next to them, and the pictures come from the Internet
Elephant bird family
Elephant bird life scene restoration map, picture from the network
Elephant bird is the Cenozoic Madagascar island most famous native animal, in fact, the elephant bird refers to more than just an animal, this name in a certain range is a collective name for the giant chocobo birds on madagascar island, in 1853, the French zoologist Charles Lucien bonaparte established the elephant bird family (aepyornithidae) on the basis of the elephant bird, The family currently includes two genera, the elephant bird and the female (mullerornis).
There are 4 species in the genus Elephant Bird as we know it, of which the model species is the Martens elephant bird (a. maximus), in addition to the Hitch's elephant bird (a. hildebrandti), the slender muscle elephant bird (a. gracilis) and the middle elephant bird (a. medius), it has been suggested that there is only one model species in the genus Elephant Bird; there are three species in the genus Female: of which the model species is the black-billed female (m. agilis), in addition to the beziliao female (m. betsilei) and spotted females (m. rudis）。 In the ornithischia family, elephant birds are the largest, and females are smaller. Although females are smaller and more agile, they predate the extinction of elephant birds, and fossils show that the last females survived until 1,000 years ago.
The elephant bird skeletons in the museum, and the fossils of different sizes around them are members of the elephant bird family, and the pictures come and go
The mythical elephant bird
Elephant birds have long coexisted with humans, and appear in historical legends and myths, the famous traveler Marco Polo also saw this huge bird after landing on the island of Madagascar, he described the elephant bird in his travelogue: "The spread wings are 16 meters long, and the feathers are about 8 meters long. Apparently, Marco Polo exaggerated the size of the elephant bird, but it showed the shock he was when he saw the animal.
The elephant bird also appears in Arabic mythology, and it is likely to be the prototype of the elephant catcher. Myths and legends describe the elephant catcher bird as a giant eagle like a roc, when it opens its wings to cover the sky, and when it flaps its wings, it flies sand and stones. The power of the elephant catcher is so great that it can even grab an elephant and fly into the sky. Although elephant catchers do not exist, this mythical animal probably developed on the basis of elephant birds. Not only in Marco Polo's travelogues and Arab mythology, but also in the religious beliefs of the inhabitants of Madagascar, the elephant bird also has a lofty status.
The elephant bird model in the museum, compared to the ostrich, the largest bird of the day, is a real heavyweight, and below there are extinct models of dodo and great auk, pictured from the network
Extinction of elephant birds
It is precisely because of the lofty status of elephant birds in the hearts of malagasy residents that they have not been hunted by humans in large numbers, which is an important reason why elephant birds have coexisted with humans for so long. Due to the island's limited resources, it is stressful to feed large animals such as elephant birds, so its number is not large. In contrast to the situation of elephant birds, the number of humans on the island of Madagascar is increasing, and humans have adopted traditional slash-and-burn methods to transform the environment and reclaim farmland, which has caused the habitat of elephant birds to shrink and the number to continue to decline. Although humans do not directly hunt elephant birds, they collect elephant eggs for food, which is a major blow to elephant birds that are not strong in reproduction. In this way, under the influence of human intentions and unintentionalities, the elephant bird eventually became extinct in the 17th century, and the last recorded sighting of the elephant bird was finally stopped in 1649.
The extinction of the elephant bird took away the last hopes and dreams of giant birds, and today's humans can only imagine the animal's height and elegance through bone fossils and eggs.
Today, one can only catch a glimpse of elephant birds in museums, and the pictures come from the Internet
The biggest bird
Kelenken is currently the tallest bird found, and the image comes from the web
In 2006, the Kelenken of the family Ornithischiae was discovered in South America, with a head length of 71 cm, which is the largest bird skull found so far, and its height is 3.2 meters, which is also the tallest bird found so far. With the largest head and the tallest height, news reports began calling Kelenken the new bird king, comparing the elephant bird to the bird.
In fact, we do not only evaluate the size of an animal to see whether it is the highest, but also the weight is a very important reference. Don't look at the kelenken, but its weight is only 250 kg, far less than the elephant bird's 500+, and even lower than the thunderbird (350-400 kg) belonging to the same family of birds, so it is far from the largest bird.
The Australian running bird chasing its prey, it is a huge and powerful chocobo bird, image from the Internet
In terms of height and weight, the current ranking of the largest birds is: the first place, the elephant bird; the second place, the Australian running bird; and the third place, the thunderbird. You can forget about kelenken, these are all.
Resources:
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4.trevor h. worthy, warren d. handley,michael archer and suzanne j. hand (2016). "the extinct flightlessmihirungs (aves, dromornithidae): cranial anatomy, a new species, andassessment of oligo-miocene lineage diversity". journal of vertebratepaleontology. online edition: e1031345. doi:10.1080/02724634.2015.1031345.
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By the way, the next issue introduces the largest prehistoric bird, the Mulberry Pseudodonted Bird