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
Morfil Island the island, but are now locally extinct. The French colonists would use the island for elephant hunting. The main towns on the island are Podor and Salde. Morfil Island Morfil Island (; lit. "Ivory Island") is an island lying between the River Senegal and the Doué River in northern Senegal. "Morfil" is an antiquated French term for raw ivory. It is separate from the mainland for almost 150 km. Around the 11th century, Morfil was the centre of Tekrur, one of the first Islamic Sub-Saharan states. As such, it was an important centre of trans-Saharan trade. The island later became