''Cygnus falconeri'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

of very large

swan Swans are birds of the genus ''Cygnus'' within the family Anatidae. The swans' closest relatives include the goose, geese and ducks. Swans are grouped with the closely related geese in the subfamily Anserinae where they form the tribe (biology) ...

known from

Middle Pleistocene The Chibanian, more widely known as the Middle Pleistocene (its previous informal name), is an Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale or a Stage (stratigraphy), stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocen ...

-aged deposits from

Malta Malta, officially the Republic of Malta, is an island country in Southern Europe located in the Mediterranean Sea, between Sicily and North Africa. It consists of an archipelago south of Italy, east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The two ...

and

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

. Its dimensions are described as exceeding those of the living

mute swan The mute swan (''Cygnus olor'') is a species of swan and a member of the waterfowl family Anatidae. It is native to much of Eurasia, and (as a rare winter visitor) the far north of Africa. It is an introduced species in North America, home to ...

by one-third, which would give a bill-to-tail length of about (based on 145–160 cm for '' C. olor''.). By comparison to the bones of living swans, it can be estimated that it weighed around and had a wingspan of about . Due to its size, it may have been

flightless Flightless birds are birds that cannot fly, as they have, through evolution, lost the ability to. There are over 60 extant species, including the well-known ratites ( ostriches, emus, cassowaries, rheas, and kiwis) and penguins. The smal ...

. Its remains on Malta are associated with dwarf elephants (the smaller '' Palaeoloxodon falconeri'' and the larger '' Palaeoloxodon mnaidriensis''), giant dormice ('' Leithia,'' including the largest dormouse ever, the rabbit-sized ''L. melitensis'' and the smaller ''L. cartei'' and '' Maltamys gollcheri''), the giant tortoise '' Solitudo robusta'' and other birds, including raptors and members of the crane genus '' Grus''.C. Savona-Ventura, A. Mifsud
A review of the Pleistocene deposits in the southwestern coast of Malta
''Xjenza'', 4 (2) (1999), pp. 10-17 Some remains of the species are displayed

Għar Dalam Għar Dalam (; "Cave of Dalam", Dalam being a fifteenth-century family name) is a 144-metre long phreatic tube and cave, located in the outskirts of Birżebbuġa, Malta. The cave contains the bones of animals that lived on Malta during the Plei ...

museum in

Birżebbuġa Birżebbuġa (; sometimes shortened to B'Buġa) is a seaside town in the Southern Region, Malta, Southern Region of Malta, close to Marsaxlokk. It is approximately from the capital Valletta, and has a population of 9,736 as of March 2014. The ...

, Malta.

References

†falconeri Pleistocene birds Quaternary birds of Europe Birds described in 1865 Fossil taxa described in 1865 {{swan-stub