Sylviornis is an extinct genus of large, flightless bird that was endemic to the islands of New Caledonia in the Western Pacific.

The strange extinct avian rulers of New Caledonia named Sylviornis, were among the oddest large birds ever to exist. For a long time we puzzled about what they were, only to find out that were indeed real “giant chickens”.

Sylviornithidae is an extinct family of flightless birds, known from subfossil bones found in Holocene aged deposits on the Melanesian islands of New Caledonia and Fiji.

Belonging to the order of Galliformes, the genus Sylviornis is best known for its significant role in prehistoric ecosystems. These flightless birds inhabited lush forests, showcasing a variety of remarkable adaptations that catered to their environments.

Mar 30, 2016 · The giant flightless bird (Aves: Sylviornithidae) existed on La Grande Terre and Ile des Pins, New Caledonia, until the late Holocene when it went extinct shortly after human arrival on these islands.

Mar 30, 2016 · Sylviornis neocaledoniae is found to be a stem galliform, distant from megapodiids, and the sister taxon to the extinct flightless Megavitiornis altirostris from Fiji, which we transfer to the family Sylviornithidae.

One of the strangest residents of these islands was Sylviornis neocaledoniae, a huge flightless bird standing around 0.75m tall (2’6″) and measuring about 1.7m long (5’7″).

Sylviornis is an extinct genus of stem-galliform bird containing a single species, S. neocaledoniae, or erroneously, "New Caledonian Giant Megapode".

Dec 7, 2022 · Sylviornis neocaledoniae (Galliformes, Sylviornithidae), a recently extinct bird of New-Caledonia (Galliformes, Sylviornithidae) is the largest galliform that ever lived and one of the most enigmatic birds in the world.

The endocast of the insular and extinct Sylviornis neocaledoniae (Aves, Galliformes), reveals insights into its sensory specializations and its twilight ecology.