Elephant bird bird" egg after it was radiographed. It is widely believed that the extinction of "Aepyornis" was a result of human activity. The birds were initially widespread, occurring from the northern to the southern tip of Madagascar. One theory states that humans hunted the elephant birds to extinction in a very short time for such a large landmass (the Blitzkrieg hypothesis). There is indeed evidence that they were hunted and their preferred habitats destroyed. Eggs may have been particularly vulnerable. 19th-century travelers saw eggshells used as bowls, and a recent archaeological study found remains of eggshells among the remains of human
Borneo elephant Museum of Natural History disagreed in 1943, and placed all Sundaic elephants in the subspecies "Elephas maximus sumatrensis". In 1950, Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described a subspecies "Elephas maximus borneensis", taking as his type an illustration in the National Geographical Magazine. In 2003, the debate was re-opened by a suggestion that the introduced Sulu elephants and the north-east Borneo population might have descended from the now extinct Javan elephant, which was named "Elephas maximus sondaicus" by Deraniyagala. This hypothesis is based on missing archaeological evidence of long term elephant habitation in Borneo, a corroboration in folklore and that elephants have