Facts about flightless birds (ratites)
- Ratites are large and heavyweight creatures of Gondwanan origin, incapable of flight, but able to run very fast.
- Their wings are tiny—those of an ostrich, which may be two and a half metres (8 feet) tall and weigh 136 kg (300 pounds), are smaller in area than those of a goose.
- Flightless birds or ratites have descended from ancestors which were capable of flight.
- The largest of the ratites are now extinct. Some species of moa from New Zealand reached a height of 4 m (13 feet), and finds of giant bird bones on the island of Madagascar gave rise to legends in Arab mythology of the roe, or elephant bird.
- In New Zealand lives the smallest and strangest of the ratites. The kiwi.
- Kiwi birds are chicken-sized, shy, and nocturnal.
- The large eggs of ratites are sought by many predators, some of which have developed ingenious methods for breaking the thick shell.
- The ostrich is the most familiar and largest of living ratites, for it is often seen in zoos.
- Ostrich is farmed in different countries of the world.
- In the wild ostriches are often found with herds of antelope and zebra, where it acts as a watchman, for it has far sharper eyesight than the mammals.
- The national bird of Australia is the emu, yet another grazing ratite and again one that has been drastically reduced because it competes with introduced domestic mammals.
- The emu is after the ostrich, the largest living ratite, reaching up to 2 m (6.6 ft) tall and about 60 kg (130 lb).
- The rhea is sometimes called the American ostrich.
- The emu is among the best armed of the flightless species, for its inner toenail is a huge spike of horn with which it can protect itself.
- The ratites are by no means the only birds which cannot fly. A number of species have lost the power to do so, although in general they have kept the features which are characteristic of flying birds.
