Today, when people think of giant eggs, the first image that comes to mind for many is probably ostrich eggs.
Weighing a record-breaking 2,589 kg, equivalent to a small house cat, the ostrich egg rightfully deserves the title of the largest egg ever laid by a living bird.
However, looking back at the Earth's evolutionary history, ostrich eggs are surprisingly small.
About 1,000 years ago, a species of giant bird, 3 meters tall, lived and laid eggs throughout Madagascar. They were called elephant birds, with two major genera: Aepyornis and Mullerornis.
The elephant bird Aepyornis maximus is believed to be the largest bird ever to have existed, potentially weighing up to 1,000 kg. This bird currently holds an impressive record for laying the largest eggs of any known animal species.
Elephant bird eggs are about 150 times larger than a typical chicken egg. They are so enormous that the Buffalo Science Museum once mislabeled them as eggs because their size was so overwhelming that people couldn't believe they were real eggs.
Second on this list is a creature that lived during the time of the dinosaurs but wasn't a dinosaur. Scientists working in Antarctica have reported a bizarre discovery: a giant egg nearly the size of an elephant bird's egg.
Estimated to be around 66 million years old, this rugby-ball-sized egg is the first soft-shelled fossil egg found on the Antarctic continent. Scientists believe it was laid by a mosasaur, a giant marine reptile.
Lead author Lucas Legendre, a researcher at the University of Texas at Austin, shared: “It came from an animal roughly the size of a large dinosaur, but completely different from dinosaur eggs.” This egg closely resembles the eggs of lizards and snakes, but it came from a giant relative of theirs.
Previously, it was believed that giant marine reptiles from the Cretaceous period did not lay eggs, but this mysterious fossil has challenged that view. Scientists have dubbed this rock-like fossil, measuring over 28x18cm, simply "The Thing".
The next name we can mention is the dinosaur called Beibeilong sinensis. This dinosaur, which lived 90 million years ago, laid eggs four times the size of today's ostrich eggs, with a diameter of about 45cm and weighing 5kg.
However, there's another record that isn't related to absolute size but rather to relative proportion: the kiwi, a tiny bird that faces a colossal task during pregnancy: its eggs can weigh up to 20% of the mother's body weight.
Interestingly, the kiwi bird is also the closest living relative of the elephant bird, creating a peculiar link between the two species with completely different records.
Source: https://dantri.com.vn/khoa-hoc/khong-phai-khung-longda-dieu-day-la-loai-de-ra-trung-to-nhat-hanh-tinh-20250908000203746.htm
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