Elephant bird determined that "Vorombe titan" reached weights of and stood tall, making it the world's largest bird, slightly larger than the much older "Dromornis stirtoni". Elephant birds have been extinct since at least the 17th century. Étienne de Flacourt, a French governor of Madagascar in the 1640s and 1650s, mentions an ostrich-like bird said to inhabit unpopulated regions, though it is unclear whether he was repeating folk tales passed on from generations earlier. In 1659, Flacourt wrote of the "vouropatra – a large bird which haunts the Ampatres and lays eggs like the ostriches; so that the people of these places
Elephant meat Elephant meat Elephant meat refers to the flesh and other edible parts of elephants. The consumption of elephant meat has likely been a source of food for humans during the entire time of their coexistence. By the beginning of the Middle Palaeolithic, around 120,000 BCE, African societies were hunter-gatherers proficient in exploiting herds of elephants for their meat. A specimen of the now-extinct straight-tusked elephant was discovered in the Ebbsfleet Valley, near Swanscombe. The 400,000-year-old skeleton was found with flint tools scattered around, suggesting the elephant had been cut up by a tribe of the early humans existing at the