The Ostrich: The Fastest Thing on Two Legs

With its massive body and huge neck, legs, and feet, it could never have flown! A male weighs an average of 250 pounds and stands seven to nine feet high.

It can’t fly, but it is a magnificent runner. It is the fastest creature on two legs. The ostrich can run 43 miles per hour in bursts and can maintain 31 miles per hour for a half hour. By then, it can be more than 15 miles away! A single stride is up to 16 feet when running. Even ostrich chicks can run at more than 3 miles per hour.

The ostrich’s design is obvious in that “its legs are perfectly placed so that the body’s center of gravity balances on top of its legs” (Livescience.com).

The ostrich foot is beautifully designed for running. It has only two toes rather than four as most birds have. Its long toe has a strong nail that is used for gripping the ground.

In a race between a female ostrich and Dennis Northcutt, a professional football player and one of the fastest men alive, the ostrich won hands down. “It was no contest. The ostrich left Dennis in the dust without even trying. Here’s why. Speed is a product of downforce in stride length. With each step, the ostrich produces an explosive 1900 pounds of force to propel it forward. That’s more than twice as much as the 900 pounds that a human can generate. David Sandler of strengthpro.com says, “The ostrich’s ability to produce force rapidly was remarkable. We’re talking the fastest numbers we have ever seen and over two times faster than the best athletes we have seen.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WcMRpozO4s

The ostrich wings are not like the wings of a flying bird. They are not made for flying but for other purposes.

Sibbele Hietkamp, an ostrich farmer in South Africa, lists some of the purposes as follows (“Letters to Editor,” New Scientist, June 21, 2008):

Thermoregulation

Stability in running

Enabling rapid right angle turns

Courtship displays

Stability while mating

Warning signals

Nest Building

Shade and shelter for young

The wings are used to regulate body temperature. The skin under the fathers is bare, and the creature expertly controls its internal temperature by covering and uncovering this skin with its wings.

The ostrich uses its wings as rudders when it runs. It can make quick turns, using the wings as counter balances.

Ostrich feathers aren’t flight feathers with the complex interlocking hook system composed of barbs and barbules. Ostrich feathers are soft and fluffy and act as perfect insulation.

The ostrich doesn’t have a keel on the breastbone (sternum) like flying birds. The keel is a large ridge on the breastbone to which the bird’s powerful flight muscles are attached. Since the ostrich doesn’t fly, it doesn’t need a keel.

The ostrich doesn’t have hollow bones like a flying bird. Many of its bones are solid to provide strength for running and kicking and other aspects of land living.

The scientific name Strothio camelus means “camel-like.” Like the camel, the ostrich can go long periods without water. But it loves water and can even swim well.

Its eye is bigger than that of any other land animal. The massive number of photoreceptor cells and the large size of the image allow it to see in great detail. It can see long distances with telescopic sight. By day, it can identify moving objects the size of a dog up to 2.2 miles (3.5 km) away. At night, it can see a small creature 50 meters away. The ostrich usually lives in a very dusty environment, and it has a membrane that moves like a windshield wiper to keep the eye clear and moist.

The ostrich and the zebra often graze together in a symbiotic relationship. The ostrich’s keen eyesight combined with the zebra’s keen hearing provides protection for both creatures.

The ostrich fights with its feet, kicking forward because that is the way its knees bend. It can kill a lion with its powerful kick. Before attacking, it will perform a “dance of fury.” Its neck turns red, it squats low with its neck tucked in its wings, stretches out and swings rhythmically from side to side in harmony to the click-clack-click-clack sound it produces.

The female is called a hen and the male is called a cock or rooster. The hen is gray colored and the cock is black with. One cock lives with a herd of up to seven females, one of which is dominant. The ostrich egg is six inches long and weighs as much as three pounds (equal to 24 chicken eggs). All of the females in a herd lay their eggs in one big nest called a dump nest, but each hen can recognize her own eggs. Only the dominate hen and cock incubate the eggs, the hen sitting on them in the day and the cock, at night. This provides good camouflage to protect the birds, since the light-colored hen blends in with the environment in the day and the dark-colored cock is nearly invisible at night. The male raises the chicks, teaching them how to feed and protecting them from predators. He shelters them from the sun with his wings.

Of the ostrich female, the Bible says, “She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers…” (Job 39:16).