Aepyornis

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Vorombe
)

Aepyornis
Temporal range: Quaternary
↓
Aepyornis maximus skeleton and egg
Extinct (1000 AD)
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Infraclass: Palaeognathae
Order: †Aepyornithiformes
Genus: †Aepyornis
I. Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1851[1]
Type species
Aepyornis maximus
Species
Map of Madagascar showing where A. hildebrandti (b) and A. maximus (c) specimens have been found
Synonyms
  • Vorombe Hansford & Turvey, 2018

Aepyornis is an extinct genus of elephant bird formerly endemic to Madagascar. The genus had two species, the smaller A. hildebrandti and the larger A. maximus, which is possibly the largest bird ever to have lived.[2] Its closest living relative is the New Zealand kiwi.[3] They became extinct sometime around 1000 AD, probably as a result of human activity.

Taxonomy

Brodkorb (1963) listed four species of Aepyornis as valid: A. hildebrandti, A. gracilis, A. medius and A. maximus.[4] However, Hume and Walters (2012) listed only one species, A. maximus.[5] Most recently, Hansford and Turvey (2018) recognized only A. hildebrandti and A. maximus.[6]

The nominal species Aepyornis titan Andrews, 1894, was placed in the separate genus Vorombe by Hansford and Turvey (2018), with A. ingens a synonym of titan. Aepyornis grandidieri

Rowley, 1867 is an ootaxon known only from an eggshell fragment and hence a nomen dubium. Hansford and Truvey (2018) also found Aepyornis modestus a senior synonym of all Mullerornis nominal species, making modestus the epithet of the Mullerornis type species.[6] However, later DNA studies found that Vorombe titan was indistinguishable from A. maximus, and probably represented large females of the species.[2]

Evolution

Like the

keel. Because Madagascar and Africa separated before the ratite lineage arose,[7] Aepyornis and other elephant birds are thought to have dispersed and become flightless and gigantic in situ.[8] More recently, it has been deduced from DNA sequence comparisons that the closest living relatives of elephant birds are the New Zealand kiwis, from which they were estimated to have diverged over 50 million years ago.[9]

Description

The skull
The foot bones
Both photographed at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris

The species of Aepyornis are amongst the largest birds, with weights of 235 kilograms (520 lb) estimated for A. hildebrandti[2] and 275–1,000 kilograms (610–2,200 lb) for A. maximus, making it one of the largest, if not the largest bird to have ever lived,[10][2] with the latter reaching 3 metres (9.8 ft) in height. The head bore a straight, thick conical beak, which was proportionally larger in A. hildebrandti than in A. maximus, though the heads in both birds were small relative to body size. The neck was proportionally long, with 17 cervical vertebrae. The wings were vestigial. The pelvic bones (vertebrae, ilium and pubis) were heavily fused to each other, so much so that their boundaries are difficult to discern. The hindlimb was proportionally long, with its bones being robust, with the femur in particular being very short and thick. The tibiotarsus has a prominent longitudinal ridge for muscle attachment. There is no evidence for the presence of a fourth toe or spur. The terminal toe bones (phalanges) of the foot are broad and not hooked.[11] The females of A. maximus are suggested to have been larger than the males, as is observed in other ratites.[2]

Ecology

Examination of brain

Rhea americana, while A. maximus was probably a browser.[14] Isotope analysis of eggshells attributed to a population of A. hildebrandti from northern Madagascar suggests that this population were probably browsers rather than mixed feeders.[2]

An embryonic skeleton of Aepyornis is known from an intact egg, around 80-90% of the way through incubation before it died. This skeleton shows that even at this early ontogenetic stage that the skeleton was

Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle
, Paris

Extinction

It is widely believed that the extinction Aepyornis was the result of human activity, and more certainly of human's arrival on Madagascar. The birds were initially widespread, occurring from the northern to the southern tip of Madagascar.

blitzkrieg hypothesis). There is indeed evidence that they were killed. However, their eggs may have been the most vulnerable point in their life cycle. A recent archaeological study found fragments of eggshells among the remains of human fires,[17]
suggesting that the eggs regularly provided meals for entire families.

theropod dinosaurs

The exact time period when they died out is also not certain; tales of these giant birds may have persisted for centuries in

Malagasy legendary extinct animal called the vorompatra (pronounced [vuˈrumpə̥ʈʂ]), Malagasy for "marsh bird" (vorom translates to "bird").[18] After many years of failed attempts, DNA molecules of Aepyornis eggs were successfully extracted by a group of international researchers and results were published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.[19]

It has also been suggested that the extinction was a secondary effect of human impact due to transfer of

subfossil sites on the island (MacPhee and Marx, 1997: 188), such as Ambolisatra (Madagascar), where Mullerornis modestus) and A. maximus have been reported.[20]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b c Brands, S. 2008
  2. ^
    ISSN 2041-1723
    .
  3. ^ "Ancient DNA ends Aussie claim to kiwi origins".
  4. ^ Brodkorb, P. (1963)
  5. ISBN 978-1408158616
    .
  6. ^
    PMID 30839722
    .
  7. ^ Yoder, A. D. & Nowak, M. D. (2006)
  8. ^ van Tuinen, M. et al. (1998)
  9. S2CID 206555952
    .
  10. ISBN 978-1-4081-5725-1
    .
  11. ISBN 978-1-78548-136-9
    , retrieved 2 May 2023
  12. PMID 30381378
    .
  13. ^
    ISSN 0024-4066
    .
  14. PMID 35414222
    .
  15. ISSN 0272-4634
    .
  16. ^ a b c Hawkins, A. F. A. & Goodman, S. M. (2003)
  17. ^ Pearson and Godden (2002)
  18. ^ Vorompatra Central (2005)
  19. ^ Ghosh, Pallab (2010)
  20. ^ Goodman, S. M. & Rakotozafy, L. M. A. (1997)

References

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