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
Straight-tusked elephant they evolved into dwarfed elephants. The responsible factors for the dwarfing of island mammals are thought to be the reduction in food availability, predation and competition. Straight-tusked elephant The straight-tusked elephant ("Palaeoloxodon antiquus") is an extinct species of elephant that inhabited Europe during the Middle and Late Pleistocene (781,000–50,000 years before present). Some experts regard the larger Asian species, "Palaeoloxodon namadicus", as a variant or subspecies. It was formerly thought to be closely related to the living Asian elephant; however, in 2016, DNA sequence analysis showed that its closest extant relative is actually the African forest elephant, "Loxodonta cyclotis". It