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
Largest prehistoric animals along with the closely related "Eotriceratops xerinsularis" both with estimated lengths of . Ojoceratops and several other ceratopsians rival them in size. The very largest-known ornithopods, like "Shantungosaurus" were as heavy as medium-sized sauropods at up to , and in length. The largest-known birds of all time might have been the elephant birds of Madagascar. Of almost the same size was the Australian "Dromornis stirtoni". Both were about tall. The elephant birds were up to and "Dromornis stirtoni" was up to in weight. The tallest bird ever was the giant moa ("Dinornis maximus") at tall. The largest-known flight-capable bird was