Largest organisms is frequently poorly documented and many are subject to conjecture and estimation. The largest living bird, a member of the Struthioniformes, is the common ostrich ("Struthio camelus"), from the plains of Africa and Arabia. A large male ostrich can reach a height of and weigh over . A mass of has been cited for the common ostrich but no wild ostriches of this weight have been verified. Eggs laid by the ostrich can weigh and are the largest eggs in the world today. The largest bird in the fossil record may be the extinct elephant birds ("Aepyornis") of Madagascar, which
The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs has killed the goose to no purpose. It was also one of several fables applied to political issues by the American illustrator Thomas Nast. Captioned "Always killing the goose that lays the golden eggs", it appeared in "Harpers Weekly" for March 16, 1878. There the picture of the baffled farmer, advised by a 'Communistic Statesman', referred to the rail strike of 1877. The farmer stands for the politically driven union members whose wife and children sorrow in the background. The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs "To kill the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" is an idiom used of