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Definition 2024


Æpyornis

Æpyornis

See also: Aepyornis

Translingual

Proper noun

Æpyornis

  1. Alternative spelling of Aepyornis
    • 1894, Henry O. Forbes, “Antarctica: a vanished Austral land”, in The Fortnightly, volume 61, page 197:
      In the distant island of Madagascar also there flourished once, though now extinct, a member of the same family, the Æpyornis, a giant, if not in height, at all events in the bulk and dimensions of its limbs, which appear to have exceeded those of even the most elephantine of the moas.
    • 1939, Frederic Augustus Lucas, Animals of the Past: An Account of Some of the Creatures of the Ancient World:
      Like the Moa the Æpyornis seems to have lived in tradition long after it became extinct, for a French history of Madagascar, published as early as 1658 makes mention of a large bird, or kind of ostrich, said to inhabit the southern end of the island.
    • 2015, H. N. Hutchinson, Extinct Monsters: A Popular Account of Some of the Larger Forms of Ancient Animal Life:
      It will thus be seen that we have three distinct groups of giant land birds—the Moas, the Dromornis, and the Æpyornis,—occupying areas at present widely separated by the ocean.