Elephant bird to carry off large primates; today, lemurs still retain a fear of aerial predators such as these. Another might be the perception of ratites retaining neotenic features and thus being mistaken for enormous chicks of a presumably more massive bird. The ancient Malagasy name for the bird is vorompatra, meaning "bird of the Ampatres". The Ampatres are today known as the Androy region of southern Madagascar. Like the ostrich, rhea, cassowary, emu, kiwi and extinct moa, "Mullerornis" and "Aepyornis" were ratites; they could not fly, and their breast bones had no keel. Because Madagascar and Africa separated before the ratite
Syrian elephant accomplished training and domestication as war elephants remains unclear. Hannibal had a war elephant known as "Surus"; it has been suggested to mean "the Syrian". It was said by Cato to have been his best (and biggest) elephant. In that case, the elephant may have been of Seleucid stock. If it were in fact of native Syrian stock, or an imported Indian elephant, remains subject to speculation. Syrian elephant The Syrian elephant or Western Asiatic elephant ("Elephas maximus asurus") is a proposed name for the westernmost population of the Asian elephant ("Elephas maximus"), which became extinct in ancient times. Skeletal