Editing Elephant bird (section)

== Discovery ==
Elephant birds have been extinct since at least the 17th century. [[Étienne de Flacourt]], a French governor of Madagascar during the 1640s and 1650s, mentioned an ostrich-like bird, said to inhabit unpopulated regions, although it is unclear whether he was repeating folk tales from generations earlier. In 1659, Flacourt wrote of the "vouropatra&nbsp;– a large bird which haunts the Ampatres and lays eggs like the ostriches; so that the people of these places may not take it, it seeks the most lonely places."<ref name="Flacourt1658">{{cite book|author=Etienne de Flacourt|title=Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=69w_AAAAcAAJ&pg=PA165| page = 165|access-date=21 May 2013|year= 1658|publisher= chez Alexandre Lesselin}}</ref><ref name="ley196608">{{Cite magazine |last=Ley |first=Willy |author-link= Willy Ley |date=August 1966 |title= Scherazade's Island |department=For Your Information |url=https://archive.org/stream/Galaxy_v24n06_1966-08#page/n45/mode/2up |magazine= Galaxy Science Fiction |pages= 45–55}}</ref> There has been speculation, especially popular in the latter half of the 19th century, that the legendary [[Roc (mythology)|roc]] from the accounts of [[Marco Polo]] was ultimately based on elephant birds, but this is disputed.<ref name=":3">{{Cite journal |last=Buffetaut |first=Eric |date=2019-09-06 |title=Early illustrations of Aepyornis eggs (1851–1887): from popular science to Marco Polo's roc bird |url=https://sciencepress.mnhn.fr/en/periodiques/anthropozoologica/54/12 |journal=Anthropozoologica |volume=54 |issue=1 |pages=111 |doi=10.5252/anthropozoologica2019v54a12 |s2cid=203423023 |issn=0761-3032}}</ref>

Between 1830 and 1840, European travelers in Madagascar saw giant eggs and eggshells.{{r|ley196608}} British observers were more willing to believe the accounts of giant birds and eggs because they knew of the [[moa]] in New Zealand.{{r|ley196608}} In 1851 the genus ''Aepyornis'' and species ''A. maximus'' were scientifically described in a paper presented to the [[Paris Academy of Sciences]] by [[Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire]], based on bones and eggs recently obtained from the island, which resulted in wide coverage in the popular presses of the time, particularly due to their very large eggs.<ref name=":3" />

Two whole eggs have been found in dune deposits in southern [[Western Australia]], one in the 1930s (the Scott River egg) and one in 1992 (the [[Cervantes, Western Australia|Cervantes]] egg); both have been identified as ''Aepyornis maximus'' rather than ''[[Genyornis newtoni]],'' an extinct giant bird known from the Pleistocene of Australia. It is hypothesized that the eggs floated from Madagascar to Australia on the [[Antarctic Circumpolar Current]]. Evidence supporting this is the finding of two fresh [[penguin]] eggs that washed ashore on Western Australia but may have originated in the [[Kerguelen Islands]], and an [[ostrich egg]] found floating in the [[Timor Sea]] in the early 1990s.<ref name="Long1998">{{cite journal |last1=Long |first1=J. A. |last2=Vickers-Rich |first2=P. |last3=Hirsch |first3=K. |last4=Bray |first4=E. |last5=Tuniz |first5=C. |display-authors=3 |date=1998 |title=The Cervantes egg: an early Malagasy tourist to Australia |url=http://museum.wa.gov.au/research/records-supplements/records/cervantes-egg-early-malagsy-tourist-australia |journal=Records of the Western Australian Museum |volume=19 |issue=Part 1 |pages=39–46 |access-date=2014-04-24}}</ref>