Elephant bird Elephant bird Elephant birds are members of the extinct ratite family Aepyornithidae, made up of large to enormous flightless birds that once lived on the island of Madagascar. They became extinct, perhaps around 1000–1200 CE, for reasons that are unclear, although human activity is the suspected cause. Elephant birds comprised the genera "Mullerornis", "Vorombe" and "Aepyornis". While they were in close geographical proximity to the ostrich, their closest living relatives are kiwi, suggesting that ratites did not diversify by vicariance during the breakup of Gondwana but instead evolved from ancestors that dispersed more recently by flying. In September 2018, scientists
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