Editing Elephant bird (section)

{{Short description|Extinct order of birds}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=May 2021}}
{{Automatic taxobox
| name = Elephant birds
| fossil_range = {{fossil range|Quaternary}}
| image = Aepyornis maximus.jpg
| image_caption = ''[[Aepyornis maximus]]'' skeleton and egg
| display_parents = 2
| parent_authority = 
| taxon = Aepyornithiformes
| authority = [[Alfred Newton|Newton]], 1884<ref name="SN">Brands, S. (2008)</ref>
| type_species = {{extinct}}''[[Aepyornis maximus]]''
| type_species_authority = [[Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire|Hilaire]], 1851
| subdivision_ranks = Genera
| subdivision = * {{extinct}}''[[Aepyornis]]''
* {{extinct}}''[[Mullerornis]]''
* {{extinct}}''[[Vorombe]]''?
}}

'''Elephant birds''' are extinct [[flightless birds]] belonging to the [[Order (biology)|order]] '''Aepyornithiformes''' that were native to the island of [[Madagascar]]. They are thought to have gone extinct around 1000 CE, likely as a result of human activity. Elephant birds comprised three species, one in the genus ''[[Mullerornis]]'', and two in ''[[Aepyornis]].'' ''Aepyornis maximus'' is possibly the largest bird to have ever lived, with their eggs being the largest known for any [[amniote]]. Elephant birds are [[palaeognaths]] (whose flightless representatives are often known as [[ratite]]s), and their closest living relatives are [[Kiwi (bird)|kiwi]] (found only in New Zealand), suggesting that ratites did not diversify by [[vicariance]] during the breakup of [[Gondwana]] but instead [[convergently evolved]] flightlessness from ancestors that dispersed more recently by flying.