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
Bird Island, South Georgia wandering albatross were ringed, which gave startling data about their range - one bird was found in Australia . The island is currently a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and so there are no landings allowed without permission. The summit of the island, Roché Peak is named after the Englishman Anthony de la Roché who discovered South Georgia in 1675. 2008 marked the 50th anniversary of biological research on Bird Island. The island has been a station for Antarctic research since 1963, and is currently a biological research station of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) at Jordan Cove, with three