Ostrich
The ostrich is largest African Oiseau and, with the aptéryx, the émeu and the Nandou, it belongs to the group of the Ratite S.
The word derives from Italian ostruce , itself resulting from Latin opinion struthio , according to the Greek strouthiôn .
One currently distinguishes two Espèce S from ostriches:
- the Ostrich of Africa - Struthio camelus Linnaeus 1758, known as “blue neck”
- the Ostrich of Somalia - Struthio molybdophanes Reichenow 1883. Species monotypic of Ethiopia, Kenya of North and Somalia, known as “red neck”.
The subspecies Struthio camelus syriacus which lived in the Negev and which is mentioned in the Bible is extinct.
Description
Animal of big size (270 cm to the maximum for the male, 200 cm for the female) and rather heavy (until 150 kg for the male, 120 kg for the female), the ostrich is a bird which does not fly. Its life expectancy is of approximately 70 years.
The ostrich is fastest of the terrestrial Oiseaux. It moves while going and can run at a speed of 56 km/h. This sprinteuse has only two fingers. It rests on the interior finger, more developed, when it runs. Faculty to fly was replaced by the power of the legs, which enables him to run as quickly as of the mammals.
At the adulthood, the head and the neck of the ostrich are stripped or furnished with a thick sleeping bag. The plumage of the body is abundant. The wings are short but normally made up. There exists important a sexual Dimorphisme, the male has a black and white plumage while the female has a dull brown plumage.
Habitat
The ostriches are originating in the steppe areas and Subdésertique S with sparse vegetation of Africa and south-Western Asia. Via the breeding, one meets some in many areas, Europe, Australia, America for example.
Food
The ostriches are primarily herbivorous, but their mode is varied, they are able to introduce all that passes to the range of their Bec.
Bridge
Polygamous living in bands, the males arrange a major excavation in the ground being used as nest.
With a mass ranging between 1,2 and 1,8 kg, the egg of ostrich are the largest egg with the shell of live animal and thus largest cell of the animal kingdom (in the case of an egg fertilized and have just been laid).
Breeding
Robust birds of breeding easily for a long time domesticated for the harvest of their decorative warp ends and for their flesh, their egg S (from 20 to 100 eggs per annum and by female and them Leather.
Nowadays, the breedings of ostriches are regarded as one of the agricultural projects most profitable. They are often called the “farms of the future” because of the large variety of their products (meat, leather and feathers), of their effectiveness of production and reproduction and their high potential profitability. The ostriches are commercially high since more than one hundred of years (towards 1880). Annual leather exports of ostrich coming from South Africa towards the United States, before the commercial sanctions, reached the record of 90.000 parts in 1986. After this date, the shortage of skins involved a raising of prices. The breeding of the ostrich became an interesting activity in which various contractors, in Europe and especially to the United States, launched out to try to satisfy part of the international request. The breeding of the ostrich was finally established on a worldwide scale.
Meat of ostrich
The meat of ostrich as many brings proteins and of iron that beef, but it is much less fatty: 2% of lipids compared with 3 to 15% for ox.
Others
The ostrich appears in certain popular French expressions, to see: animalist Idiom.
- ostriches of Graaff Reinet in Notebook of Africas by Jacques Nougier, editions Harmattan (2006).