Talk:Elephant bird

message: Would there be any objection to moving this page to Elephant bird? In general, animals are listed under their common names, not scientific names, with the scientific name as a redirect. (Examples: Canis lupus --> Wolf, Panthera leo --> Lion, Haliaeetus leucocephalus --> Bald Eagle.) At least one prehistoric animal (Sarcosuchus imperator, aka SuperCroc) has also been listed by a popular name rather than scientific name for the main article. I think the same should be done here for consistency. Firebug 20:01, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Page move

message: Well I disagree if the text remains like it is now! Why, because this is about the genus Aepyornis, not about Elephant Birds in general. There are (actually were) also Elephant birds of the genus Mullerornis. Pmaas 22:02, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not one genus for Elephant birds 

message: Can we remove the blurb about the Divine Eagle from "Return of the Condor Heroes" being an elephant bird?  The description of it doesn't sound anything remotely like an elephant bird, at all.--Mr Fink 04:53, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have no objection. Another possibility is to ask for citation or verification. Peter Maas 12:02, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I went ahead and deleted the "Divine Eagle" reference, as the guy in the story learns swordplay from a giant eagle, not an elephant bird.  And in the movies, it's portrayed as looking like a giant eagle, not an elephant bird.--Mr Fink 15:29, 25 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concerning The "Divine Eagle" 

message: In the "Description" section, the article says Flacourt reported Elephant Birds as being extant and well known. In the "Extinction" section, no reference is made to the 17th century reports. If Flacourt is a reliable witness, then the Elephant Bird was still around in the 17th century; if not then the reason why he is not reliable must be given. Can someone resolve this, please? --APRCooper (talk) 17:56, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Now the lead says they went extinct around 1000-1200. Which is it? This BBC article says they went extinct "around 1000 years ago" but the wiki page lists so many examples of eggs and such from later than that. I really have no idea what's going on and I have no expertise in this topic. 96.41.225.223 (talk) 04:58, 14 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of Extinction 

message: Aepyornis and Mullerornis should definitely have separate articles. FunkMonk (talk) 16:40, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split 

message: Does elephant bird refer to Aepyornithids in general, Aepyornis, or only Aepyornis maximus? FunkMonk (talk) 18:31, 16 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: It has been suggested that Elephant bird should redirect to Aepyornis. But that should only be done if 1: Aepyornithidae is retaiend as a separate article, or if two: Aepyornithidae is a monotypic taxon, which it isn't. FunkMonk (talk) 23:55, 3 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Elephant bird" 

message: How can this species be the largest recorded when the Moa bird of New Zealand was 2 feet taller and one hundred pounds heavier?
Firemanic9 (talk) 07:54, 31 October 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Scanning both articles suggests that the moa reached a weight of 230 kg, while the elephant bird reached 400 kg - significantly heavier. WolfmanSF (talk) 17:20, 17 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Largest Bird? 

message: I have reassessed the quality of this article down from B-class: initially to Start-class, but upon closer inspection, I'm pushing it back up to C-class.  Although only one  is used, others can and should be added.  Aside from citation issues, the article could use a lead paragraph or two... anything more than a single sentence.  (That lead sentence should also mention Madagascar, since that is where the birds were endemic to.)  At first glance, it seemed like basic information was missing from the article (such as geographic ranges, habitat preferences, etc.), but I realize that the secondary literature is probably pretty sparse.  Properly filling in the article would probably require extensive reviews of the primary literature... but that's just a guess.  Otherwise, the article's greatest fault is in its citations, causing it to fail the first criteria for B-class: "The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations where necessary."  Otherwise the prose is good and topic coverage seems nearly complete, though far from comprehensive.  Again, the Start-class rating was hasty, and I apologize. – VisionHolder « talk » 18:12, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Assessment 

message: The measurements of the egg - am wondering about the proportions of something 13" long and 36" around - more like a ball than the egg shape of the illustration. Anyone? Manytexts (talk) 23:44, 16 May 2013 (UTC)
replies: text: That's 5" short of a ball's circumference. What do you think it should be? WolfmanSF (talk) 04:28, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Egg 

message: I think it would be worth adding the following tidbit to the article, but my edit was controversial enough to be quickly reverted.  I therefore submit it here on the talk page to see if time and exposure can resolve the controversy.  
* The 2009 Disney/Pixar movie Up featured a large bird-like creature named Kevin.
The criticism on the revert was that the movie does not specify the type of bird that Kevin was.  However, the appearance and size of the bird, and the overall narrative in the movie of a search for a long-lost species - they all fit the elephant bird quite well.  
Comments? AresLiam (talk) 01:17, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: This is a great "example of original" research, which is not allowed. Furthermore, the bird doesn't look like an elephant bird at all, and doesn't take place in Madagascar. FunkMonk (talk) 01:19, 4 April 2014 (UTC)

text: Among other things, none of the source materials for Up ever mention the elephant bird as an inspiration for Kevin, let alone identify her as one.  It is mentioned that the Himalayan monal is the inspiration for her plumage, but, nothing about the elephant bird.--Mr Fink (talk) 01:37, 4 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Elephant bird in Art 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just modified  on Elephant bird. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
*Added  tag to http://museum.wa.gov.au/sites/default/files/The%20Cervantes%20egg%20an%20early%20Malagasy%20tourist%20to%20Australia.pdf
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080421213745/http://sn2000.taxonomy.nl:80/Taxonomicon/TaxonTree.aspx?id=51284 to http://sn2000.taxonomy.nl/Taxonomicon/TaxonTree.aspx?id=51284
*Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090303044044/http://www.taxonomy.nl:80/Main/Classification/51286.htm to http://www.taxonomy.nl/Main/Classification/51286.htm
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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: An article has just been published that completely overturns a lot of long standing beliefs regarding aepyornithid taxonomy, and it might be a bit of a mess to sort out here. A lot of species have been reshuffled, and one new genus has been named, Vorombe. It concerns me a bit that this is based on morphology alone, when DNA is available, but oh well. So what should we do about this? Wait for more confirmation, or do the changes? FunkMonk (talk) 08:26, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: It's quite possible that things will get revised again when someone gets around to doing further DNA work. For now, however, it seems we have little choice but to accept the new taxonomy, as this latest publication appears to be the most extensive and authoritative work on the subject to date. WolfmanSF (talk) 16:52, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text:  FWIW - several more refs, which may (or may not) be relevant to the discussion, are noted below - in any case - Enjoy! :) Drbogdan (talk) 17:17, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly relevant, but we should probably also cite the actual study, as I linked above. FunkMonk (talk) 17:27, 26 September 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Taxonomic revision and new genus 

message: The front of this article states that they went extinct between 1000-1200 AD. However, other sources and articles on this site claim these birds survived until the 17th century. So which is it? This site should be consistent. 24.51.242.175 (talk) 15:59, 25 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Inconsistent dates 

message: There are new scientific articles indicating that humans and elephant birds coexisted for millennia:
*Sept 2018: New find clears Madagascar's first settlers of wiping out world's largest bird | Science | AAAS
*Sept 2018: For Thousands of Years, Humans Coexisted with the Largest Birds That Ever Lived | Live Science
*May 2019: To Kill an Elephant Bird: The Extinction of Madagascar's Avian Giants - Capeia
Even a Britannica article from 2019 mentions the extinction is believed to be a result of multiple causes that do include humans, but also include climate and vegetation changes on the island: elephant bird | Summary & Facts | Britannica
I have seen statements of theorized human involvement, but all of these lack evidence other than presuming other examples of human migration leading to species extinction applying to this case as well. It's worth mentioning that the examples of this I've found are all dated prior to the 2018 findings being published.
Lindsey40186 (talk) 15:57, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
replies: text: The arrival date for humans on Madagascar is seriously contested, as you would find if you looked up the citing literature, with other scholars placing the date in the latter half of the first millennium AD. Also long coexistence doesn't necessarily preclude ultimate human cause of the extinction as this paper from last year attributes the extinction to changing land use to agro-pastoralism and increasing deforestation. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:56, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Human involvement in extinction 

message: "David Attenborough owned an almost complete eggshell, dating from 600 to 700 AD, which he pieced together from fragments that were given to him while making his 1961 BBC series Zoo Quest to Madagascar."
Why "owned" past tense? Drsruli (talk) 00:56, 29 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Attenborough 

message: pretty sure there's something wrong with the date of extinction cus it says 1200 ce at first but then switches to "at least the 17th century" 2601:89:C700:90:9171:8B34:7066:2CAA (talk) 13:31, 15 January 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  extinction date 

message: See  they suggest that the size difference is likely sexual dimorphism. Hemiauchenia (talk) 07:16, 21 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vorombe a junior synonym? 

message: Does anybody know what the origin of this name actually is? I've done some digging, and it's not clear to me. I've found secure evidence that it was in use by 1947 to refer to aepyornithids, , but the evidence for its use prior to this is pretty sparse. . (Note that "Some Avian Exhibits That Recall the Past" dates to 1971, not 1844). This 1861 book uses it to refer to the moa genus Dinornis instead. . Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:15, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Looking at google books, I've now found results from 1931  and 1897 . Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:50, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Now 1893 . Hemiauchenia (talk) 23:56, 1 May 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  Having looked through the entirety of google books, I can't find a specific mention of the phrase "elephant bird" referring to aepyornithids that predates the 1890s. Hemiauchenia (talk) 00:01, 2 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the epithet "Elephant bird"