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
Borneo elephant Museum of Natural History disagreed in 1943, and placed all Sundaic elephants in the subspecies "Elephas maximus sumatrensis". In 1950, Paules Edward Pieris Deraniyagala described a subspecies "Elephas maximus borneensis", taking as his type an illustration in the National Geographical Magazine. In 2003, the debate was re-opened by a suggestion that the introduced Sulu elephants and the north-east Borneo population might have descended from the now extinct Javan elephant, which was named "Elephas maximus sondaicus" by Deraniyagala. This hypothesis is based on missing archaeological evidence of long term elephant habitation in Borneo, a corroboration in folklore and that elephants have