Latest Ratites Stories
A Rhode Island animal sanctuary said animal control officers are searching for an escaped emu that officials believe may have wandered into Massachusetts. Pamela Hood, 41, the emu's owner at the Foster, R.I., sanctuary, said the large flightless bird escaped along with his mate and their baby three weeks ago, but the female and youngster eventually returned on their own, WCVB-TV, Boston, reported Thursday. Hood said Elmer the Emu has evaded all capture attempts, despite being shot with three...
The Canadian owner of two escaped and mischievous emus in rural southwestern Ontario is hoping the big birds will return home as temperatures get colder.Big Bird 1 and 2, a male and female, jumped fences weeks ago at the farm of Sandy Soulliere outside Harrow, 25 miles southeast of Windsor, the Windsor Star reported.The female was recaptured but escaped again by jumping the fence, Soulliere said.She acquired the Australian three-toed flightless birds in September to save them from being...
Ostriches, emus, kiwis and other winged non-flyers might seem to be birds of a feather, sharing similar evolutionary origins, but the story could turn out to be much weirder, with perhaps numerous flying ancestors. This group of birds, called ratites, has been viewed by biologists as part of a larger group (paleognaths) of mostly extinct birds that are key to understanding the early evolution of birds. All living ratites are found in the Southern Hemisphere and share features...
Large flightless birds of the southern continents "“ African ostriches, Australian emus and cassowaries, South American rheas and the New Zealand kiwi "“ do not share a common flightless ancestor as once believed.Instead, each species individually lost its flight after diverging from ancestors that did have the ability to fly, according to new research conducted in part by University of Florida zoology professor Edward Braun.The new research, which appears this week in the online edition...
By MACDONALD, Nikki Statistics can tell us who's an average Kiwi, but society is changing so fast it's increasingly difficult to define 'normal', writes Nikki Macdonald. -------------------- MEET the Averages: James, 35 and Sarah, 37 -- both a bit on the porky side -- live in a three- bedroom bungalow in Wellington. They'd been living together for several years before Sarah decided, when she reached 28, that she couldn't just keep hitting the snooze button on her biological alarm clock....
Early Friday morning, March 7, one of the world's most endangered species -- a North Island brown kiwi -- hatched at the Smithsonian's National Zoo Bird House. Keepers had been incubating the egg for five weeks, following a month long incubation by the chick's father, carefully monitoring it for signs of pipping: the process in which the chick starts to break through the shell. The chick remained in an isolet for four days and is now in a specially designed brooding box. The box will be not...
By Ed Stoddard JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - King Kong may be a far-fetched creation of Hollywood but scientists say the big ape has some basis in biological fact: animals on islands often evolve into gigantic versions of their mainland kin. "There is a whole body of research on islands which suggests gigantism occurs on them but of course nothing on the scale of King Kong," said Sue Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist and director of the global species programme for WWF International....
A shifting diet of two flightless birds inhabiting Australia tens of thousands of years ago is the best evidence yet that early humans may have altered the continent's interior with fire, changing it from a mosaic of trees, shrubs and grasses to the desert scrub evident today, according to a University of Colorado at Boulder-led team. The unprecedented ecosystem disruption is now thought to have led to the extinction of Australia's large terrestrial mammals, which disappeared shortly after...
Latest Ratites Reference Libraries
The tinamous are one of the most ancient groups of bird, members of a South American bird family of about 47 species in 9 genera. Although they look similar to other ground-dwelling birds like quail and grouse, they have no close relatives and are classified as a single family. The tinamous range is from South America and north to Mexico. They occur in a wide range of habitats. Tinamous are distantly related to the ratites, the order Struthioniiformes that includes the rheas, Emu, and...
The Rhea is a large flightless bird native to South America. American Rheas live in grassland, savanna, scrub forest, chaparral, and even desert, but prefer areas with at least some tall vegetation. Darwin's Rhea lives in areas of open scrub in the grasslands of Patagonia and on the Andean plateau. It is classified as endangered throughout its range. The Common Rhea, Rhea americana, is not only the largest species of rhea, but also the largest bird in the Americas. Adults weigh up to 66...
A kiwi is any of the species of small flightless birds endemic to New Zealand of the genus Apteryx (the only genus in family Apterygidae). There are currently six recognized species of kiwi: Great Spotted Kiwi, Apteryx haastii, distributed through the more mountainous parts of northwest Nelson, the northern West Coast, and the Southern Alps. Little Spotted Kiwi, Apteryx owenii, on Kapiti Island. The North Island Brown Kiwi, Apteryx mantelli, is widespread in the northern two-thirds of...
Cassowaries, Casuarius, are very large flightless birds native to the tropical forests of New Guinea and northeastern Australia. Cassowaries are part of the ratite group of birds that include the emu, rhea, ostrich, moa, and kiwi. There are three species of Cassowary recognized today: The Southern Cassowary of Australia and New Guinea; the Dwarf Cassowary of New Guinea and New Britain; and the Northern Cassowary of New Guinea. Some nearby islands have small populations of these birds, but it...
The Emu, Dromaius novaehollandiae, is the largest bird native to Australia and the only existing member of the genus Dromaius. It is also the second largest bird in the world by height, after the ostrich. The Emu is common over most of mainland Australia, although it avoids heavily populated areas, dense forest and arid areas. There are three existing subspecies in Australia: In the southeast, D. novaehollandiae novaehollandiae. In the north, D. novaehollandiae woodwardi. In the...
