GIANT BIRDS OF MADAGASCAR

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 47, 19 November 1926, Page 6

GIANT BIRDS OF MADAGASCAR

ENORMOUS EGGS The great Alrican island is a kind of museum of antique forms of animal life, which have there held their own, being protected by their insular habit from stronger animals which have exterminated their fellows on the continents. The birds referred to above, however, no longer exist, except in a subfossi] state; but they were living until a recent period, that is, until the great destroyer, man, made bis appearance in the island.

It is now about ninety years ago since it became known that portions of some very large eggs bad been discovered in Madagascar, and later on a few examples of a perfect egg were' found. We all know the size of an ostrich egg; but these Madagascar eggs are very much larger than those of the African birds, for they are nearly fifteen inches long bv about twelve inches broad. They have therefore the capacity of six or seven ostrich eggs, and of a hundred and fifty hen’s eggs; in other words, they would hold two gallons of liquid. Together with fragments of these eggs, large bones began to be found, and eventually enough of them’ to form complete skeletons, and it was evident that the birds of which these bones formed a part were larger than an ostrich, and the name Epyornis (“tall bird”) was given to them.

Other species were also discovered, the smallest being as large as a bustard, as well as others intermediate in size between that and the largest species, which was named AE. maximus. Later still, two other species of these big birds came to fight, both much larger than any previously found; and as it was difficult to find a word beyond meximus (“largest”), these last were calledw .12. ingens and /E. titan, for they are both about ten feet high.

All the species of these big birds were wingless, there being no vestige of wing-bones; and there is no “keel” to the breast-bone, where, in almost all birds, the muscles working the wings are attached. But the bones of the legs—the tibia and the femur— are exceedingly strong and massive, so that these birds could evidently run at great speed. The skull, however, is small compared with the other dimensions, and the /Epyornis had probably small brainpower. In several examples, the legboties had been sawn through, evidently to preure the marrow; this-fact is a clear indication of human agency, and, together with the recent condition of the bones, shows that these great birds have become extinct only in the modern period. It was conjectured by some naturalists that the presence of remains of the /Epyornis gave rise to the story in the “Arabian Nights” of an immense bird called Roc or Rukh, which could take up an elephant in its talons; but these Madagascar birds could not have lifted a hare from the ground, as their feet were made for walking and not for seizing prey, writes James Sibree in “Chambers’s Journal.” In the New Zealand building at Wembly in 1921, two full-sized figures of the Dinornis, or “Moa,” of those islands were exhibited, with their former clothing of leathers, etc., since tnartv examples of their skeletons, together with portions of the skin and feathers, have been found in caves. From the almost exact similarity of the bones of the Dinornis with those of the zEpvornis, the latter bird must have presented much the same appearance as the New Zealand bird. Ihe Dinornis was probably a little taller than the /Epvornis; but its eggs Mere much smaller', being only ten inches by seven inches, but, after ail, a very large and wonderful egg. It is ;i noteworthy fact that all the diterent species of the greatest birds in the world are found in the southern islands, and in the southern portions of the continents. We have, therefore, the ostrich in South Africa, another bird in South America, the emu and the cassowary in Australia, the .Envornis in Madagascar, and the Dinornis >'n New Zealand This would suggest that in earlier geological periods, probably in the Lower Tertiary, there must have been an extensive land-area in what is now the Antarctic Ocean, where the common ancestors of these great birds were evolved. Examples of these great eggs, and some of the bones of the birds which produced them, may be seen in the Natural History Museum, South Kenshigton.