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
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