The Buffalo Museum of Science broke the news of an exciting discover this week when it confirmed it is in possession of an Elephant Bird egg. 

Nestled inside a box that curators believed held a real egg, museum staff found a model egg, considerably smaller than the real one. Turns out, the model had been mislabeled the last time the museum's collection was re-cataloged. Somewhere along the line, things got slightly scrambled.

"Once we felt it and looked closely at it, it was like wait a minute, if that's the model, maybe this one is real," said Kathy Leacock, the Buffalo Museum of Science's director of collections.

To test their theory, they had a little help from Buffalo State College where the egg was "eggzed-rayed" by the Patricia H. and Richard E. Garman Art Conservation Department.

"As the sort of x-ray was coming down the screen, it was like even more exciting because you could just see inside. You could see things going on inside and it was just obviously real," said Leacock.

The authenticity of the Elephant Bird egg makes it a rare discovery for the museum.

"What's exciting for us is that now, the Buffalo Museum of Science is on a very very small list of institutions that have these eggs. There's less than 40 of these known in public institutions around the world," she said.

After hundreds of years, the Elephant Bird, which originated in Madagascar and is believed to have gone extinct in 1200 AD, will build a nest here in Buffalo, the egg going on display at the museum May 1 in their Rethink Extinct Gallery. A full scale of the 10 to 12 foot bird will also be on display, giving visitors an idea of just how large the Elephant Bird was when it walked the earth.