What it is
Elephant birds were giant flightless palaeognaths unique to Madagascar. This entry uses Aepyornis maximus as the face of the group (Vorombe titan, named in 2018, is often treated as the same large form). All are extinct. Their eggs were the largest of any bird.
Range
Madagascar only. Subfossils and eggshells come from the south and centre in particular.
What happened
People reached Madagascar in the late Holocene (arrival dates are still argued; often placed within the last two thousand years). Cut and burnt eggshells and hunted bone show harvest. Radiocarbon syntheses put extinction of the large forms around 1000-1200 CE. Later traveller tales of living giants are weak. Habitat clearing and hunting are the main cited causes; climate is sometimes added, not as a replacement for people.
When / status
Extinct around 1000-1200 CE, after human settlement: not a deep-time fossil.
Human role
Hunting and egg collecting on an island whose giant birds had no prior human predators.
Sources
IUCN Red List (Aepyornis maximus, EX); eggshell and bone dating syntheses (Hansford, Crowley, and later).