Given that the biology of the recently extinct aepyornithids is poorly understood, we undertook a histological study of 29 skeletal elements of adult and juvenile specimens of Aepyornithidae, i.e. Aepyornis maximus, Aepyornis hildebrandti and Vorombe titan, in addition to a group of taxonomically unidentifiable juvenile Aepyornithiformes. Comparative analysis of the histology of the different skeletal elements showed that although the femur retained a good record of growth during early ontogeny, the tibiotarsus provided the best record of growth. Our data showed that, like other insular birds and their extant relative, the kiwi, Aepyornithidae experienced protracted growth. We also found that intracortical remodelling began early in ontogeny and continued throughout their lives, becoming more extensive throughout the compacta with age, albeit more restricted to the perimedullary region in the femora. We also deduced that the different skeletal elements experienced variable amounts of intracortical remodelling, which was most likely to be related to biomechanical constraints, size of the element and ontogenetic age. Additionally, we documented the occurrence of an unusual endosteal tissue within the large perimedullary erosional spaces of a femur of A. maximus. Overall, our study provided a lot of new information about the life history of these giant, recently extinct ratites.

中文翻译：

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骨组织学使人们了解了马达加斯加灭绝的象鸟（Aepyornithidae）的生物学

鉴于对近来灭绝的aepyornithids的生物学知之甚少，我们进行了对29种Aepyornithidae成年和少年标本的骨骼元素的组织学研究，即Aepyornis maximus，Aepyornis hildebrandti和Vormbe titan，以及一组在分类学上无法识别的幼年甲虫。对不同骨骼成分的组织学比较分析表明，尽管股骨在早期个体发育期间保持了良好的生长记录，但胫骨tar提供了最佳的生长记录。我们的数据表明，与其他岛屿鸟类及其现存亲戚一样，猕猴桃科的猕猴桃也经历了长期的生长。我们还发现，皮质内改建从个体发育的早期开始，并贯穿其整个生命，随着年龄的增长，在整个致密组织中变得更为广泛，尽管更多地局限于股骨的髓周围区域。我们还推断出，不同的骨骼元素经历了不同程度的皮层内重塑，这很可能与生物力学约束有关，元素的大小和个体发育年龄。此外，我们记录了在股骨大的髓周侵蚀空间内发生异常的骨内膜组织的情况。A.极大。总体而言，我们的研究提供了有关这些新近灭绝的巨鳄的生活史的许多新信息。