Elephant bird that apparently originated from Marco Polo's account of the rukh in 1298, although he was apparently referring to an eagle-like bird strong enough to "seize an elephant with its talons". Sightings of eggs of elephant birds by sailors (e.g. text on the Fra Mauro map of 1467–69, if not attributable to ostriches) could also have been erroneously attributed to a giant raptor from Madagascar. The legend of the roc could also have originated from sightings of such a giant subfossil eagle related to the African crowned eagle, which has been described in the genus "Stephanoaetus" from Madagascar, being large enough
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