Case file · Cryptid
Flacourt's vouropatra, the giant bird
In his 1658 'Histoire de la grande isle Madagascar', the French governor Étienne de Flacourt wrote of the vouropatra, a giant bird of the south that laid eggs like an ostrich's and hid from people.
1658 CE · -25.03, 46.98 · status: explained
The account
Huge eggshells, holding about seven litres, were later found in the south and west. In 1851 Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire named the extinct elephant bird Aepyornis, and many writers linked it to the roc of Arab tales and Marco Polo. Flacourt wrote at Fort-Dauphin.
The sceptical view
The elephant birds were real but are thought to have died out centuries before Flacourt; he was probably repeating older stories.