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
Cyprus dwarf elephant Cyprus dwarf elephant The Cyprus dwarf elephant ("Palaeoloxodon cypriotes") is an extinct species that inhabited the island of Cyprus during the Pleistocene until around 11,000 years BC. Remains comprise 44 molars, found in the north of the island, seven molars discovered in the south-east, a single measurable femur and a single tusk among very sparse additional bone and tusk fragments. The molars support derivation from the Straight-tusked elephant "(Palaeoloxodon antiquus"), that inhabited Europe since 780,000 years ago, who reached the island presumably during a Pleistocene glacial maximum when low sea levels opened terrestrial corridors between Cyprus and Asia Minor. During