elephant bird

American  

noun

1. any of several huge, extinct, flightless birds of the genus Aepyornis, of Madagascar, reaching a height of about 9 feet (2.7 meters).

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elephant bird British  

noun

1. another name for aepyornis

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Etymology

Origin of elephant bird

First recorded in 1885–90

Example Sentences

The elephant bird was the heaviest bird to ever walk the earth.

From Scientific American • Jun. 2, 2023

Last year a complete egg of an aepyornis maximus, otherwise known as an elephant bird, sold for $130,000 – roughly five times what it would have gone for a decade earlier.

From The Guardian • Feb. 24, 2019

Just a few thousand years ago, gargantuan fauna roamed the planet, from the gorilla-sized sloth lemur Archaeoindris fontoynontii to the elephant bird Aepyornis maximus.

From Nature • Dec. 11, 2018

Symbolic of this process is an enormous egg that Attenborough acquired on his last visit to Madagascar, an egg laid by an elephant bird – an ostrich-like species that's now extinct.

From The Guardian • Mar. 2, 2011

These included the elephant bird, a flightless creature ten feet tall and weighing almost half a ton—the largest bird in the world—and the giant lemurs, the globe’s largest primates.

From "Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind" by Yuval Noah Harari