Birdr

Somali Ostrich

Struthio molybdophanes

Ostriches (Struthionidae) · Struthioniformes (Struthioniformes)

Somali Ostrich illustration

Play a quiz with Somali Ostrich and similar species

View all photos, video and sound

Reviewed

Somali Ostrich

Loading…

Family

Struthionidae (; from Latin strūthiō 'ostrich' and Ancient Greek εἶδος (eîdos) 'appearance, resemblance') is a family of flightless birds, containing the extant ostriches and their extinct relatives. The two extant species of ostrich are the common ostrich and Somali ostrich, both in the genus Struthio, which also contains several species known from Holocene fossils such as the Asian ostrich. The common ostrich is the more widespread of the two living species, and is the largest living bird species.

Order

Struthioniformes is an order of birds with a single extant family, Struthionidae, containing the ostriches. Several other extinct families are known, spanning across the Northern Hemisphere, from the Early Eocene to the early Pliocene, including a variety of flightless forms like the Palaeotididae, Geranoididae, Eogruidae and Ergilornithidae, the latter two thought to be closely related to Struthionidae.

How Birdr teaches identification