The Asian or Asiatic ostrich (''Struthio asiaticus''), is an extinct species of

ostrich Ostriches are large flightless birds of the genus ''Struthio'' in the order Struthioniformes, part of the infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, and kiwis. There ...

that lived during the Neogene period on the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

. The early records that ranged from the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.333 million to 2.58Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( , often referred to as the ''Ice age'') is the geological epoch that lasted from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was finally confirmed in ...

Holocene The Holocene ( ) is the current geological epoch. It began approximately 11,650 cal years Before Present (), after the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene togeth ...

epoch in northeastern Asia are considered dubious.Buffetaut, E. Feduccia (2022) Beads made from shells taken from archaeological sites in India dating to more than 25,000 years were found to have traces of DNA and analysis of sequences examined from them show that the species is definitely in the genus ''Struthio''.

Description

Asian ostriches were large, being more robustly built and reaching about the same height as the extant male ostrich. It may have had short toes, but this is considered a tentative assumption. A specimen from the Pliocene of Morocco could be 20% bigger than adult male of the extant ''

Struthio camelus The common ostrich (''Struthio camelus''), or simply ostrich, is a species of flightless bird native to certain large areas of Africa and is the largest living bird species. It is one of two extant species of ostriches, the only living members o ...

'',Mourer-Chauviré, Cécile, et al (2008) but the African specimens are considered dubious, and the "exact proportions are difficult to reconstruct on the basis of the available material."

References

Works cited

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Additional reading

* *Routledge, Jennifer (2020). "Ostrich Eggshell from the Far Eastern Steppe: Stable Isotopic Exploration of Range, Commodification, and Extirpation". ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020 Ostriches Extinct flightless birds Ratites Struthio Late Quaternary prehistoric birds Neogene birds of Asia Pleistocene birds Zanclean first appearances Holocene extinctions Extinct birds of Asia Quaternary birds of Asia Fossil taxa described in 1871 {{bird-stub