Æpyornis Island Æpyornis Island "Æpyornis Island", or "Aepyornis Island", is a short story by H. G. Wells, first published in 1894 in the "Pall Mall Budget". It was included in "The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents", the first collection of short stories by Wells, first published in 1895. In the story, a man looking for eggs of "Aepyornis", an extinct flightless bird, passes two years alone on a small island with an "Aepyornis" that has hatched. "Aepyornis maximus" (the Giant elephant-bird) was a giant flightless bird that lived in Madagascar; it became extinct probably because it was hunted excessively by humans. The
Extinct in the wild Extinct in the wild An extinct in the wild (EW) species is one which has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as known only by living members kept in captivity or as a naturalized population outside its historic range due to massive habitat loss. Examples of species and subspecies that are extinct in the wild include: The Pinta Island tortoise ("Geochelone nigra abingdoni") had only one living individual, named Lonesome George, until his death in June 2012. The tortoise was believed to be entirely extinct in the mid-20th century, until Hungarian malacologist József Vágvölgyi spotted Lonesome