We have all, at some point or another, mislabeled or misplaced something only to find it much later. Perhaps we’d long since forgotten about the item, or maybe we never stopped looking for it. Those items are usually, in the grand scheme of life, rather minute things like our favorite t-shirt or an old baseball card. Seldom do we forget about a rare egg that contains an extinct species of bird.
That’s precisely what happened at the Buffalo Museum of Science. A rare egg from the extinct elephant bird was found in a collection at the museum, and had gone unnoticed for decades, due to a mislabeling error. Talk about your all-time backfires. The egg is actually the biggest egg laid by any vertebrate ever, measuring a foot long, 2.5 feet around, and weighs in around three pounds. Elephant birds were known for their size, usually weighing close to 1,000 pounds and standing 10 feet tall.
And as for that pesky mislabeling error? It had been labeled as a model egg, due to the rarity of the item. Workers discovered the mistake while taking inventory of museum items. Perhaps museum workers couldn’t believe they possessed such a rarity. IF you’re in the Buffalo area, the egg will officially be displayed for viewing come May 1st.
