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
Elephant bird documentary "Attenborough and the Giant Egg", presented by Attenborough, about his personal scientific quest to discover the secrets of the elephant bird and its egg. A complete eggshell is also available in the collection of the University of Wrocław Museum of Natural History. There is also an intact specimen of an elephant bird's egg (contrasted with the eggs from other bird species, including a hummingbird's) on display at the Delaware Museum of Natural History, just outside Wilmington, Delaware, US, and another in the Natural History Museum, London. The Melbourne Museum has two "Aepyornis" eggs. The first was acquired for £100