A gigantic egg laid by a now-extinct "elephant bird" has just sold at a London Auction for a staggering 66,675 pounds (approximately $101,813). The partly-fossilized object went for nearly double its estimated value.
The egg is nearly a foot long, nine inches in diameter, and was sold at Christie's Auction House. Previous estimates put the egg at around 20,000 to 30,000 pounds, but an anonymous buyer shattered those figures in the first ten minutes of competitive bidding. A number of other eggs exist in research and museum settings, but this is the first time in a while that one has privately changed hands.
The elephant bird egg was laid on the island of Madagascar, and is believed to date back well before the 17th century. The elephant bird species itself, scientifically known as the Aepyornis, died off several hundred years ago. During their time, they are believed to have been the world's largest bird.
The flightless birds looked something like a giant ostrich, could grow to heights of over 10 feet, and often weighed in at more than 800 pounds. That's one big bird. They weren't fearsome predators though, and instead subsisted on a mostly fruit diet.
It is currently unknown why the species went extinct. Although researchers have been able to study the remains of the birds, most of what we know about live ones is second hand. Étienne de Flacourt, the French governor of Madagascar in the 1640s and 1650s, wrote frequently about sightings of the bird. The famed explorer Marco Polo also made mention of very large birds in his own writing about the region. These accounts are believed today to be referring to the elephant bird.
The Christie's Auction House stated that the egg is approximately 100 times the size of an average chicken's. That's going to make one heck of an omelet.
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