Apex domains cannot have CNAME records.
Question and response
Question
dig elephantheadtaxidermy.com. NS
Answer
elephantheadtaxidermy.com. 5 NS ns-1463.awsdns-54.org.
elephantheadtaxidermy.com. 5 NS ns-750.awsdns-29.net.
elephantheadtaxidermy.com. 5 NS ns-921.awsdns-51.net.
elephantheadtaxidermy.com. 5 NS ns-2029.awsdns-61.co.uk.
Authority
The response has no authority records.
Additional
. 0 OPT ; payload 1232, xrcode 0, version 0, flags 0