Vegetarian elephant bird weighing almost a tonne named world's largest
Source: The Independent
Vegetarian elephant bird weighing almost a tonne named world’s largest
A study finds that one member of a previously unidentified genus of the birds could have weighed more than 1,700 pounds.
Tom Batchelor
5 hours ago
A three-metre-tall ostrich-like creature that weighed almost a tonne has been awarded the title of the world’s largest bird.
Vorombe titan, which literally means “big bird” in Malagasy and Greek, is an extinct flightless bird which was once widespread on Madagascar. It survived on a vegetarian diet.
By studying hundreds of elephant bird bones from museums around the world, researchers at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) have now provided a definitive answer to decades of conflicting evidence over which winged creature was truly the world’s largest.
They found that V titan was a distinct species of the feathered elephant bird weighing up to 860 kg.
In 1894, British scientist CW Andrews came across a specimen which was given the name Aepyornis titan.
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Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/largest-bird-elephant-vorombe-titan-madagascar-world-biggest-a8555666.html