This document summarizes key information about flightless birds. It discusses how flightless birds have evolved to lose the ability to fly through changes like smaller wing bones and more feathers. It provides details on major groups of flightless birds like ostriches, emus, kiwis, cassowaries and rheas. Specific characteristics and behaviors are described for different species within these groups. The document concludes that over 60 flightless bird species exist today, with ostriches being the largest and an island rail being the smallest.

1. SCHOOL OF STUDIES IN ZOOLOGY,
JIWAJI UNIVERSITY, GWALIOR
TOPIC : FLIGHTLES BIRDS

2. SYNOPSIS
• INTRODUCTION
• ODERS OF FLIGHTLESS BIRDS
• EXAMPLES OF FLIGHTLESS BIRDS
- OSTRICH
- EMU
- KIWI
- CASSOWARY
- RHEA
• CONCLUSION
• REFRENCES

3. INTRODUCTION
• Flightless birds have more feathers than other birds
• Flightless birds have smaller bones in their wings
• These birds have to rely heavily on swimming or running
• Some have claws on their feet to protect them from predators
• The living wingless or flightless birds belong to superorder palaeognathae
• They have lost the ability to fly during evolution. Hence it is known as flightless
birds or Runing bids.
• The flightless birds having keeless sternum and curly feathers.
• They have well developed powerful legs and small head
• Grains, fruits and vegetables are feeding habits of flightless bird.
• Easier to take care in capativity condition.
Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species, including
the well known ratites and penguins. The smallest flightless bird is the Inaccessible Island rail. The largest
flightless bird, which is also the largest living bird, is the ostrich.

4. ORDERS OF FLIGHTLESS BIRDS
• The living flightless birds belong to the following 4 orders of the
superorders palaeognathae :
• Order 1 : Struthioniformes – Ostriches of southwest asia and africa
• Order 2 : Rheiformes – Rheas of south america
• Order 3 : Casuriiformes – Cassowaries and Emus of australia.
• Order 4 : Apterygiformes – Kiwi of newzealand.

5. OSTRICH
• Today, ostriches are only found natively in the wild in Africa, where they occur in a
range of open arid and semi-arid habitats such as savannas and the Sahel, both north
and south of the equatorial forest zone.
• The Somali ostrich occurs in the Horn of Africa, having evolved isolated from the
common ostrich by the geographic barrier of the East African Rift. In some areas, the
common ostrich's Masai subspecies occurs alongside the Somali ostrich, but they are
kept from interbreeding by behavioral and ecological differences.
• The Arabian ostriches in Asia Minor and Arabia were hunted to extinction by the middle
of the 20th century, and in Israel attempts to introduce North African ostriches to fill
their ecological role have failed.
• Escaped common ostriches in Australia have established feral populations.
• 4 species are present in South Africa
• Largest flightless birds
• Weight around 100 kg
• Height 1.5 m
• Able to run 60 km/hr without weight
• The egg weight is around 1.5 kg and larger in size
• They layout 7-10 egg in once time

6. EMU
• It is believed that flightless birds evolve from
birds that can fly and they evolved because of
lack of predators. This is not the case for all
flightless birds though
• Second largest flightless bird
• 2 species is present in Australia
• Height 1.5m
• Flesh of emu moderately good for eating
• These egg is used an artistic ornamentes
• They layout egg around 15 eggs in a once time.

7. KIWI
• It is the smallest living flightless bird about the
large domestic hen.
• They are characterized by reddish or greyish
brown hair like feathers
• It is the small flightless but larger than domestic
hen
• Kiwis are nocturnal and burrowing in habit
• National bird of Newzealand so they are
protected by government
• Their winggs are rudimentry and lacking ttail
feather possess a keen nese of smell,, unique in
bird
• It is the national bird of new zealand so gov.
New zealand set aside for their protection

8. CASSOWARY
• Third largest flightless bird
• live in wooden part of Australia
• Nocturnal and shy in nature so rarely
seen
• Adults are black in colouration
• Youngs are brown in colouration
• The skin of the head and neck is bright

9. RHEA
• South American ostrich
• Having short neck and elongated body
• Always live in group
• Habitat similar to ostrich
• Nest is dug by male
• Female can lay eggs in same nest
• Incubates eggs by male

10. CONCLUSION
Flightless birds have lost the ability to fly during evolution, So they can
not fly easily.
These are over 60 extant species including the well known ostrich and
emu. The largest
flightless bird is ostrich and the smallest flightless bird is island rail.

11. REFERENCES
Chordate by Jorden and P.S.Verma