Madagascar (TV series) in March 2011. In this one-off programme, David Attenborough undertakes a personal journey back to Madagascar to investigate the fate of "Aepyornis", the island's extinct elephant birds. Believed to be the largest birds which have ever lived, evidence of their existence can still be found on the island. Whilst filming "Zoo Quest to Madagascar" in 1961, Attenborough pieced together a complete elephant bird egg from fragments of shell collected for him. "Madagascar" was first announced in March 2009 as a partnership between Animal Planet and BBC Worldwide. Production duties were handled by the BBC Natural History Unit in Bristol, with
African elephant African elephant African elephants are elephants of the genus Loxodonta. The genus consists of two extant species: the African bush elephant, "L. africana", and the smaller African forest elephant, "L. cyclotis". "Loxodonta" (from Greek λοξός, "loxós": 'slanting, crosswise, oblique sided' + ὀδούς, "odoús": stem odónt-, 'tooth') is one of two existing genera of the family Elephantidae. Fossil remains of "Loxodonta" have been found only in Africa, in strata as old as the middle Pliocene. However, sequence analysis of DNA extracted from fossils of an extinct elephant species undermines the validity of the genus. One species of African elephant, the bush