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
Dwarf elephant as "Elephas tiliensis". The Tilos dwarf elephant is the first dwarf elephant whose DNA sequence has been studied. The results of this research are consistent with previous morphological reports, according to which "Palaeoloxodon" is more closely related to "Elephas" than to "Loxodonta" or "Mammuthus". After the study of new osteological material that has been excavated in anatomical connection in the Charkadio Cave on Tilos island the new species name "Elephas tiliensis" has been assigned to the Tilos dwarf elephants. It was the latest paleoloxodontine to survive in Europe. They did not become extinct until around 4000 BC, so this elephant