Mysterious Floating Eggs
There have been two well-supported cases of an elephant bird (Aepyornis) egg floating from Madagascar to Western Australia (reference to come). This seems incredible, doesn’t it? And yet it really seems to have happened. It would be nice to know more about the mechanics of this. How bouyant is a fresh giant egg (remember, it has a much greater percentage of shell than a small egg)? What about a dead, dessicated, but intact egg? How long does an infertile egg take to dessicate, anyway (if it even does)? Do floating eggs absorb water thorugh their pores? How fast? And how fast do they travel by wind or current? If we know the answers to all these questions, we’d be better equipped to evaluate the plausibility of trans-oceanic egg dispersal.