An "Easter egg" with a difference has sold at Christie's "Travel, Science and Natural History" auction in London where a "very rare and complete sub-fossilised Elephant Bird egg ( Aepyornis maximus )" made £122,500 (€148,348).
The Elephant Bird, now extinct, was a native of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, and was the largest bird ever to have lived.
Resembling a heavily-built ostrich with long legs and talons, it grew to about 10 to 11 feet in height and is thought to have been hunted to extinction in Madagascar between the 14th and 17th centuries.
Reputedly seen by Marco Polo during his voyages, the Elephant Bird was essentially rediscovered in 1960 by BBC broadcaster David Attenborough in one of his first wildlife programmes.
The egg sold at auction measures over 100 times the average size of a chicken egg and stands at 9 inches (31cm) in height.
Elephant bird eggs are the largest eggs ever laid by any creature on earth - exceeding the size even of dinosaur eggs.
