Elephant bird bird" egg after it was radiographed. It is widely believed that the extinction of "Aepyornis" was a result of human activity. The birds were initially widespread, occurring from the northern to the southern tip of Madagascar. One theory states that humans hunted the elephant birds to extinction in a very short time for such a large landmass (the Blitzkrieg hypothesis). There is indeed evidence that they were hunted and their preferred habitats destroyed. Eggs may have been particularly vulnerable. 19th-century travelers saw eggshells used as bowls, and a recent archaeological study found remains of eggshells among the remains of human
African elephant date between forest and savanna elephants was 2.6 – 5.6 million years ago, similar to the divergence date estimated for the Asian elephant and the woolly mammoths (2.5 – 5.4 million years ago), which strongly supports their status as separate species. Forest elephants were found to have a high degree of genetic diversity, perhaps reflecting periodic fragmentation of their habitat during the climatic changes of the Pleistocene. However, recent DNA sequence analysis indicates that the extinct European straight-tusked elephant, "Palaeoloxodon antiquus", is closer to "L. cyclotis" than "L. cyclotis" is to "L. africana", thus invalidating "Loxodonta" as currently recognized. African