Curiosities About The American Rhea Or Ostrich
One of the largest birds on the planet, but little known. However, there are many curiosities about rhea, which makes it a worthy species of study.
Curiosities about rhea
Darwin’s menu
One of the curiosities of rhea is its strong relationship with the father of evolution, or to be more precise than natural selection. Charles Darwin based some of his conclusions on this magnificent bird.
The British scientist used to test all the animals he discovered on his travels. He tried several species of turtle and others such as rhea, whose bones he sent to London along with other remains of the hunted specimen, after which the Zoological Society of London decided to name the species in his honor.
Rhea is an exemplary father
One of the curiosities about rhea concerns its ethology. We are talking about a species in which the males hatch the eggs of the females, in groups in which up to a dozen females can mate with the same male.
Sometimes, however, they do not lay them in the nest, which is why the male takes care of bringing them to you. Male specimens become particularly aggressive during the breeding season, and their legs are very dangerous due to their highly developed musculature.
Curiosities about rhea … or about ostrich?
When a person unfamiliar with these species comes close to the ostrich, emu and rhea, many times he is unable to tell them apart. Darwin himself at the beginning of his travels called these animals as dwarf ostriches.
While the ostrich lives in Africa, the emu lives in Australia and the rhea in South America. There are numerous differences between them, from size to plumage, and even the fact that rhea has three toes, whereas the ostrich has three toes. only two.
Those innocent observations served Darwin as further evidence in defense of his evolutionary theory. Those two animals could be relatives who possessed a common ancestor, from which they evolved. Two animals that are so similar and different at the same time could derive from a common ancestor through different changes over the generations.
Invader of Germany
One of the most curious facts about rhea is that it has become an invasive exotic species in some countries, such as Germany. This situation is the consequence of the fact that in Europe ostriches and their relatives were exploited on farms for their meat and eggs, which became quite popular a few years ago.
These animals nowadays inhabit a German region, to be exact near the city of Lübeck. The population is estimated to have exceeded 200 and local farmers have started complaining about their impact.
Curiosities about rhea: its relationship with man
Darwin was not the only one to have related to rhea, in fact humans have lived with this species from South America for millennia. Not surprisingly, the constellation of the Southern Cross was for many natives an imprint of this animal.
The relationship between man and rhea is mainly due to the consumption of the meat of this bird, with a very healthy profile. The use of leather for clothing or feathers for dusters is quite frequent, together with the consumption of its eggs, also used for furniture. Like other wildlife, rhea has shaped our lives, whether we like it or not.
