'Biggest bird' dispute put to nest
China Daily | Updated: 2018-09-27 07:53
PARIS - After more than a century of conflicting evidence, Anglo-French animosity and a H.G. Wells novella involving murder most fowl, scientists said on Wednesday they have finally solved the riddle of the world's largest bird.
For 60 million years the colossal, flightless elephant bird - Aepyornis maximus - stalked the savanna and rain forests of Madagascar until it was hunted to extinction around 1,000 years ago.
In the 19th century, a new breed of buccaneering European zoologist obsessed over the creature, pillaging skeletons and fossilized eggs to prove they had discovered the biggest bird on Earth.
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