WELCOME TO DINO FOSSILS UK
Dino Fossils UK is an online rock and fossil store located in South Wales, Great Britain. We stock a wide varitey of specimens, from pocket money fossils to rarer and more expensive pieces.
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LATEST BLOG POST
Elephant Bird Eggshell: Aepyornis maximus
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April 7, 2013
We've just received a new shipment of Elephant Bird eggshell! All were collected in Madagascar and come from the famous Elephant Bird, Aepyornis maximus (see below). Pieces will go on sale shortly via our website. Keep an eye on the 'web exclusives' page. Alternatively, contact us if you're interested a piece - we have various sizes in stock.
About Aepyornis maximus
Commonly known as the Elephant bird, Aepyornis maximus is an extinct flightless bird whose close relatives include ostriches, emus, cassowaries, kiwis, rheas, and moas. They stood three metres tall and weighed an estimated 450 kilos. Stout and robust birds, they lived by grazing leaves from branches.
Aepyornis remains are found in the Pleistocene to recent deposits in Madagascar. It is believed that their extinction was most likely caused by the invasion of humans onto Madagascar, as there are few natural predators except for crocodiles and eagles.
Their giant eggs are still to be found, washed up on beaches or on lake shores, mostly as fragments but occasionally whole. They are notable for their large size, and may be up to nine litres in capacity. Some may contain bones of embryos.
The bird was very probably the inspiration for the legendary Roc, in the tales of Sinbad the Sailor, and in the travel accounts of Marco Polo. The novelist H. G. Wells, who originally trained as an anatomist under T. H. Huxley, wrote about the elephant bird in his short story Aepyornis Island (1894).
- Natural History Museum, London