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Giant Elephant Bird Egg (Aepyornis maximus)
Egg #01 is approx 33cm high X 30cm Diameter .
This amazing egg belongs to the Giant Elephant Bird (Aepyornis maximus) of Madagascar.
This very impressive reconstructed Egg is made from material dating back 15,000-30,000 years.
You have to see this Egg to appreciate the size of it!!!
This rare Specimen has been re-assembled from egg fragments collected over the years from the sand dunes in southern Madagascar. It takes approximately 4 weeks for the locals to assemble the egg, which is bonded onto a light weight core to provide support for the shell.
When freshly laid the egg may have held the equivalent of 7 ostrich eggs or 180 Chicken eggs and probably weighed as much as 26 pounds / 11kg .
There are only around 30 un-damaged eggs that have ever been discovered with the prices reaching about $80,000 each. This obviously provides the Cheaper alternative !
What was an Elephant Bird?
It was a giant, flightless bird characterized by thick, hearty legs and vestigial wings. While its external appearance can never be confirmed, this immense creature may have resembled a ponderous ostrich in life. Analyses of complete preserved skeletal specimens indicate that these birds may have reached heights in excess of 10 feet.
Aepyornis maximus produced the largest known bird egg, and maybe the largest egg ever produced by any animal with respect to volume. Only large theropod dinosaurs produced longer eggs.
The vast majority of Aepyornis maximus eggs are recovered from sand dunes bordering the sea. Coastal erosion during the monsoon season frequently releases them from muds in which they are found.
Less that 30 complete specimens have been documented and preserved in museum collections, which is indicative of the extreme rarity of such an offering.
The Malagasy Elephant Birds did not become extinct until historic times"possibly not until the beginning of the 17th Century. Native peoples have corroborated their late disappearance.
Their extinction began around the time of the destruction of the Madagascar forests. As the forests diminished, so did the number of these colossal birds.
The hunting of these birds for food also contributed to their population decline, as evidenced by findings of burnt bones.
These two factors resulted in the complete extinction of these harmless birds, whose enormous size makes them one of the wonders of nature.
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