Asian ostrich

Not to be confused with Struthio anderssoni.

Asian ostrich Temporal range:
File:Struthio asiaticus.jpg
Asian ostrich skeleton
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Infraclass:	Palaeognathae
Order:	Struthioniformes
Family:	Struthionidae
Genus:	Struthio
Species:	†S. asiaticus
Binomial name
†Struthio asiaticus Milne-Edwards, 1871
Synonyms
Struthio indicus Bidwell, 1910 Struthio palaeindicus Falconer 1868 nomen nudum Megaloscelornis sivalensis Lydekker 1879

The Asian or Asiatic ostrich (Struthio asiaticus) is an extinct species of ostrich that lived during the Neogene period on the Indian subcontinent.

Discovery

The early records that ranged from the Pliocene Epoch in Africa to the Pleistocene-Holocene Epoch in northeastern Asia are considered dubious. 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

File:Struthio asiaticus 2.jpg

Asian ostrich egg shells

Asian ostriches were large, being more robustly built and reaching about the same height as an adult male of the extant common 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 an adult male of the extant Struthio camelus, but the African specimens are considered dubious, and the "exact proportions are difficult to reconstruct on the basis of the available material."

Additional reading

• Routledge, Jennifer (2020). "Ostrich Eggshell from the Far Eastern Steppe: Stable Isotopic Exploration of Range, Commodification, and Extirpation". ProQuest Dissertations Publishing, 2020