elephant bird

Elephant birds are members of the extinct family Aepyornithidae. Elephant birds were large to enormous flightless birds that once lived on the island of Madagascar. They became extinct, probably in the 17th or 18th century, for reasons that are unclear, although human activity is the suspected cause. Elephant birds comprised the genera Mullerornis and Aepyornis. Aepyornis was among the heaviest of birds (the extinct Dromornis stirtoni of Australia reached a similar weight). While they were in close geographical proximity to the ostrich, elephant birds' closest living relatives are kiwis, Elephant birds are actually part of the mid-Cenozoic Australian ratite radiation; their ancestors flew across the Indian Ocean well after Gondwana broke apart. The existence of possible flying palaeognaths in the Miocene such as Proapteryx further supports the view that ratites did not diversify in response to vicariance. Gondwana broke apart in the Cretaceous and their phylogenetic tree does not match the process of continental drift.