Elephant bird to carry off large primates; today, lemurs still retain a fear of aerial predators such as these. Another might be the perception of ratites retaining neotenic features and thus being mistaken for enormous chicks of a presumably more massive bird. The ancient Malagasy name for the bird is vorompatra, meaning "bird of the Ampatres". The Ampatres are today known as the Androy region of southern Madagascar. Like the ostrich, rhea, cassowary, emu, kiwi and extinct moa, "Mullerornis" and "Aepyornis" were ratites; they could not fly, and their breast bones had no keel. Because Madagascar and Africa separated before the ratite
Wake Island rail Wake Island rail The extinct Wake Island rail ("Gallirallus wakensis") was a flightless rail and the only native land bird on the Pacific atoll of Wake. It was found on the islands of Wake and Wilkes, but not on Peale, which is separated from the others by a channel of about 100 meters. The adult bird had a length of . The wing spread was between 8.5 and . The length of the tail was . The culmen was between 2.5 and and the length of the tarsus was 3.3 to . It was closely related to the buff-banded rail