THE TRUTH ABOUT THE WORLD’S BIGGEST EGGS

Who laid the largest eggs the world has ever seen? It wasn’t the dinosaurs.

HICKS WOGAN

THE AVERAGE CHICKEN EGG can fit comfortably in the palm of your hand. This rare, fossilized specimen from National Geographic’s historical collection is more than 100 times larger. At just over a foot long and nine inches in diameter, the intact egg belonged to an elephant bird (Aepyornis maximus), a flightless herbivore endemic to Madagascar that’s been extinct since at least the 17th century. Today researchers believe the bird resembled an oversize ostrich, though it was most closely related to the kiwi, a smaller species of ratite. Its thick legs had to support some serious weight: Adults could grow to be 10 feet tall and over 1,000 pounds. Elephant bird lineage dates to around 50 million years ago, but their numbers declined as humans settled Madagascar. What happened? Gifford Miller, a…

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National Geographic (Digital) - 1 Issue, March 2025

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