Ostrich

(Struthio camelus)

Live: North-east Africa and South Africa

Habitat: Savannahs, arid open areas

Diet: Mostly plant matter, depending on availability. Ostriches have no teeth and swallow grit and small stones to grind up their food and aid digestion.

Gestation: Around 15 eggs are laid and incubated for 6 weeks

Lifespan: Up to 40 years

Status: Common

General: Ostriches are ratites (flightless birds). Others include the emu, kiwi and rhea. Adult male plumage is mostly black; young males and females are greyish-brown. They are the largest living bird and the fastest, capable of 75km per hour. Their eyesight is excellent and their hearing acute.

Outside the breeding season, ostriches generally spend their time in groups of 5-50 birds. During the breeding season, a male will make several shallow nest scrapes in a well guarded territory. He will pair up with a female, known as the “major hen”, which chooses one of the scrapes and lays up to 12 eggs. Other female ostriches may lay their eggs in the same nest. 

Some feral ostriches can be found in parts of Australia, where they were introduced in the 1860s. Having escaped from captivity, they started breeding in the wild.