Elephant Bird tibiotarsus

This is the shin bone of Aepyornis, the largest Elephant Bird, and probably the largest bird that ever lived — up to 700 lb. This bone is two and a half feet long. The two main collections are in Paris, and here at the Natural History Museum in London. Aepyornis was wiped out by the environmentally-conscious, living-in-harmony-with-their-environment indigenous people of Madagascar a few hundred years ago (a story almost too typical to warrant repetition). Working with extinct birds makes you a bit misanthropic, sadly.