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
White-whiskered puffbird White-whiskered puffbird The white-whiskered puffbird ("Malacoptila panamensis") is a resident breeding bird species from southeastern Mexico to central Ecuador. It is sometimes known as the white-whiskered softwing. This puffbird is found in forests, shady plantations, especially of Theobroma cacao, and old second growth in lowlands and foothills up to 1200m. It nests in a long, diameter burrow in, usually, gently sloping ground. The wider nesting chamber is lined with dried leaves. The female lays two, rarely three, glossy white eggs. Both sexes incubate the eggs and feed the young. The white-whiskered puffbird is a stout, large-headed, long bird which weighs