Elephant bird "A. maximus" and "D. stirtoni" were revised to 540 and 730 kg, respectively. Four species are usually accepted in the genus "Aepyornis" today, but the validity of some is disputed, with numerous authors treating them all in just one species, "A. maximus". Up to three species are generally included in "Mullerornis". Several ratites outside of Madagascar have been posited as "aepyornithid"-like and could potentially make this clade considerably more speciose. These include "Eremopezus" from the Eocene of North Africa, unnamed Canary Island remains and several Neogene taxa in Eurasia. "Aepyornis maximus" is commonly known as the 'elephant bird', a term
Elephant not indigenous to the island but were brought there before 1521 by the Sultan of Sulu from Java, where elephants are now extinct. The African elephant was first named by German naturalist Johann Friedrich Blumenbach in 1797 as "Elephas africanus". The genus "Loxodonta" was named by Frédéric Cuvier in 1825. Cuvier spelled it "Loxodonte," but in 1827 an anonymous author romanised the spelling to "Loxodonta"; the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature recognises this as the proper authority. In 1942, 18 subspecies of African elephant were recognised by Henry Fairfield Osborn, but further morphological data has reduced the number of classified