World’s biggest bird stood 3m tall

0 The world’s biggest ever bird, Vorombe titan, roamed Madagascar until about 1,000 years ago A giant flightless elephant bird from Madagascar that stood 3m tall and last roamed the Earth around 1,000 years ago has been crowned the world’s biggest ever bird.

The massive creature, known as Vorombe titan – meaning “big bird” in Malagasy and Greek – weighed up to 800kg and laid eggs that would have been large enough to feed a whole family of humans.

The title of the largest bird to have ever lived has been hotly debated among scientists for several decades.

It had been widely held that the elephant bird Aepyornis maximus was the record-holder.

Though larger, the titan skeleton – discovered in 1894 by British palaeontologist Charles William Andrews – was dismissed as an outsized version.

But after re-examining elephant bird bones from museums around the world, experts have agreed that the titan is actually a distinct species, which they have categorised under the genus Vorombe.

Now, despite being extinct for at least a millennium, the bird has been officially named and awarded the accolade.

Lead researcher Dr James Hansford, of the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology, said: “Elephant birds were the biggest of Madagascar’s megafauna, and arguably one of the most important in the islands evolutionary history – even more so than lemurs.

“This is because large-bodied animals have an enormous impact on the wider ecosystem they live in via controlling vegetation through eating plants, spreading biomass and dispersingseedsthroughdefecation. Madagascar is still suffering the effects of the extinction of these birds today.”