Elephant bird

Elephant birds Temporal range: Quaternary PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓
Aepyornis maximus skeleton and egg
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Infraclass:	Palaeognathae
Clade:	Novaeratitae
Order:	†Aepyornithiformes Newton, 1884[1]
Type species
†Aepyornis maximus Hilaire, 1851
Genera
†Aepyornis †Mullerornis †Vorombe?

Elephant birds are extinct flightless birds belonging to the order Aepyornithiformes that were native to the island of Madagascar. They are thought to have gone extinct around AD 1000, likely as a result of human activity. Elephant birds comprised three species, one in the genus Mullerornis, and two in Aepyornis. Aepyornis maximus is possibly the largest bird to have ever lived, with their eggs being the largest known for any amniote. Elephant birds are palaeognaths (whose flightless representatives are often known as ratites), and their closest living relatives are kiwi (found only in New Zealand), suggesting that ratites did not diversify by vicariance during the breakup of Gondwana but instead convergently evolved flightlessness from ancestors that dispersed more recently by flying.