オーストラリアに負けず劣らず面白いマダガスカルの生物たちの進化のお話！

In his book The Travels of Marco Polo, a 13th century explorer, he mentioned that a giant bird lived in Madagascar. This bird was a huge bird of prey that would grab an elephant and fly away, and became the motif for the imaginary animal, the "roc." (Hypothesis) In fact, the bird he mentioned was not a bird of prey, but a bird of the genus Aepyornis, also known as the "elephant bird," that reached a height of 3m and weighed 500kg. This bird was a flightless herbivorous bird, but the eggs of the elephant bird, which were so huge that they were incomparable to ostrich eggs, must have stimulated the imagination of many Arab merchants, and this may have led to the birth of the imaginary bird of prey, the "roc." Even more surprising is that until just a few hundred years ago, Madagascar was home to giant elephant birds and giant lemurs the size of gorillas. How on earth could such interesting evolution have occurred on such a remote island? More interesting than the anime "Madagascar" (personal opinion) A story about the evolution of creatures that live in Madagascar Watch the video. ＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝＝ [Reference materials] Patricia C. Wright (1998). "Impact of predation risk on the behavior of Propithecus diadema Edwardsi in the Rain forest of Madagascar." Constanze Bickelmann et al., (2009). "The late Pleistocene horned crocodile Voay robustus (Grandidier & Vaillant, 1872) from Madagascar in the Museum fr Naturkunde Berlin." Brooke E. Crowley et al., (2012). "Why all those spines? Anachronistic defences in the Didiereoideae against now extinct lemurs." Kieren J. Mitchell et al., (2014). "Ancient DNA reveals elephant birds and kiwi are sister taxa and clarifies ratite bird evolution." Atholl Anderson et al., (2018). "New evidence of megafaunal bone damage indicates late colonization of Madagascar." 【image】 ShutterStock etc. [BGM] (1)Texas Toast by Rex Banner (2)Tail ​​feather Bop by Rex Banner (3)Counting the money by Ian Post (4)Voltage by Rex Banner (5)On the Way by Ian Post (6)Howling at the Moon by D Fine Us