#ostritch

From the Vault -- This month's postcards were three installments of my Inktober Scarousel. Wild that this was almost two years ago already. Yowza.

And this is the last of the families! I have drawn SO many birds. That said, more people should draw zebra finches and waxwings, they're awesome

Hey, Baz, watcha got there?

Yeah sure I've been wanting to talk about these guys. Meet the Ratite family, well, most of it.

We've got our classic dinosaur birds the Rhea, the ostrich, the emu, and of course the cassowary. The tallest being the ostrich which can get up to 9 feet tall. But there's one bird missing from this family cookout, what is it?

Yes, the kiwi is in the family with the largest living birds. The kiwi which the largest species, the great spotted kiwi, only stands 18 inches tall, while the smallest, the north island brown kiwi, is only about 16 inches.

But mother nature really screwed these guys over, while they're this small and yet their eggs look like this,

So why is do they have an egg that takes up 15% of their body weight, that's damn near the size of what a nine foot tall bird would lay? Well, the biggest advantage is that kiwi chicks are precocious. Which means, unlike most birds, they hatch fully feathered, and within a week open their eyes and are able to find food for themselves. Of course being precocious also helps them avoid predators as well, however once invasive species were introduced (such as rats and stoats) smaller kiwi species are in danger for the first four months of life until they outgrow them. The egg being so large also helps with the fact that the rats and stoats can't drag it away or break through the thick shell.

(Disgruntled) Ostrich for Fat Bird Friday!

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