Elephant bird that apparently originated from Marco Polo's account of the rukh in 1298, although he was apparently referring to an eagle-like bird strong enough to "seize an elephant with its talons". Sightings of eggs of elephant birds by sailors (e.g. text on the Fra Mauro map of 1467–69, if not attributable to ostriches) could also have been erroneously attributed to a giant raptor from Madagascar. The legend of the roc could also have originated from sightings of such a giant subfossil eagle related to the African crowned eagle, which has been described in the genus "Stephanoaetus" from Madagascar, being large enough
Elephant Spit Spit Bay to the north and west and is formed of sediments derived from the glacial erosion of volcanic material from eruptions by Big Ben which have made the seabed south-east of the island relatively shallow. Heard Island is isolated, uninhabited and rarely visited. When the island was visited in 2002 and 2003 by scientists from the Australian Antarctic Division, the spit was intact. However, a following visit in late 2008 found that a section of the eastern end of the spit had become inundated by the ocean, forming a 2-km-long island. Elephant Spit Elephant Spit is a 9 km