Elephant bird process of continental drift. Claims of findings of "aepyornithid" egg remains on the eastern Canary Islands, if valid, would represent a major biogeographical enigma. These islands are not thought to have been connected to mainland Africa when elephant birds were alive. There is no indication that elephant birds evolved outside Madagascar, and today, the Canary Island eggshells are considered to belong to extinct North African birds that may not have been ratites (possibly "Eremopezus"/"Psammornis", or even Pelagornithidae, prehistoric seabirds of immense size). Various "aepyornithid-like" eggs and bones occur in Paleogene and Miocene deposits in Africa and Europe. Two whole eggs
Elephant Island Island on 29 January 1821 and named it "Остров Мордвинова" (Mordvinov Island) in honour of . The island is most famous as the desolate refuge of British explorer Ernest Shackleton and his crew in 1916. Following the loss of their ship "Endurance" in Weddell Sea ice, the 28 exhausted men reached Cape Valentine on Elephant Island after a harrowing ordeal on drifting ice floes. The first of Shackleton's crew to set foot here, and presumably the first person ever to make landfall, was Perce Blackborow, originally a stowaway on "Endurance". Since Blackborow was the youngest crew member, Shackleton commanded that