Fewer than 40 such eggs are held in public collections today (The Buffalo Museum of Science, BSNS Q 257) ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ hen humans first arrived on the island of Madagascar around 1500 years ago, they encountered an array of remarkable species that have since gone extinct: gorilla-sized lemurs, giant tortoises, tiny hippos and a huge, long-necked, flightless bird that lumbered through Madagascar’s forests and laid the largest eggs of any known vertebrate, including dinosaurs. The eggs of the Aepyornis, also known as the elephant bird, were a highly valuable food source for Madagascar’s human settlers. With a volume roughly equal to...