History has not been kind to the elephant bird of Madagascar. Standing nearly 10 feet tall and weighing up to 1,000 pounds — or so researchers believed — this flightless cousin of the ostrich went ...

Elephant birds were flightless birds that went extinct around 1,000 years ago. It is believed that one species of the bird was the biggest bird that ever lived. They grew up to 10 feet tall and laid ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. There’s an important concept in evolutionary biology called ...