Largest Living Bird: Greater Rhea

Greater Rhea (Rhea americana) also known as ñandú (Guaraní and Spanish). - Photo by: Rufus46

Greater Rhea (Rhea Americana) is another “largest birds that still live today” also in the group of flightless birds. Greater Rhea lives in the eastern part of Southern America native to Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Just like its cousin, the ostrich, greater rhea lives in open areas such as grasslands, savannah or grassy wetlands. There’s a group of this bird established itself in Germany since 2000 with growing population.

Growing so big makes it harder for greater rhea to be able to fly. The average weight for an adult bird can achieve 20–27 kg (44–60 lb), while stand at 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) to top of its head. The size also is bigger for the male bird compared to the females. The size of males can reach up to 40 kg (88 lb), stand nearly 1.83 m (6.0 ft) tall and measure over 150 cm (59 in) long, although this is uncommon.

Greater rhea with its fluffy feathers. - Photo by: parcanimalierdauvergne.fr

Greate rhea's foot is strong for running. - Photo by: jungledragon.com 

Same as other flightless birds such as ostriches and emus, they mostly rely on their legs to run away from predators (when being threatens). Their wings are useless for flights, but will work as balancer when they are changing direction during their run. Same as any other bigger birds, greater rhea has stronger legs that can be used as a weapon instead just for running.

Even though their diet mostly consists of plants, fruits and seeds, this bird also enjoys meals of insects, lizards, birds and other small animals. It is easier for this bird to adapt itself as they don’t have any trouble to find their food. That also explained how their population grows rapidly in their new territory in German.

Greater rheas, chasing each other. - Photo by: knowsleysafariexperience.co.uk

Male greater rhea nursing its eggs during the incubation process. - Photo by: Ralph Bower

Greater rhea is a solitary bird until the mating seasons. While the males are polygynous, the females at the same time are polyandrous. Few females will lay their eggs in the same nest prepared by the male; with the total of eggs can reach up to 50 eggs or more. Other special characters of this bird are the males will incubate the eggs and also taken care of their young.

Rhea eggs were collected by human and their meat also were eaten. Instead of that, rhea’s skin also been used to produce leather products. Their population was threatened by human, until the regulations, safe this bird from totally perished.

Top Largest Living Bird in the World

Ostrich can be aggressive. Photo by: worldatlas.com

Ever think about which one is the largest bird in the world? Some birds can fly and some of them cannot. While being largest also meant it’s harder to fly – then the few largest birds also fall in the categories of the flightless bird.

But before we go through more details you might need to check the flying birds ever – where some of the largest flying birds already extinct. Because it’s not the size of the bird that restrict them from flying – but their physical and the volume of their flying muscles.

The largest birds fall from both categories of flying and flightless birds. From the list we can go further details about their nature of the lives that explains more about their physical shapes. While in this article today we just want to know which birds include in this category.

Below are the 10 largest birds that still exist today:

10) Wandering Albatross

Albatross wings are very wide. Photo by: JJ Harrison

9) Mute Swan

Mute swan feathers entirely white with long neck and orange bill. Photo by: Yerpo

8) Dalmatian Pelican

Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) is the most massive member of the pelican family. Photo by: Olaf Oliviero Riemer

7) Andean Condor

Andean condor is the largest flying bird in the world by combined measurement of weight and wingspan. Photo by: NationalGeographic

6) Kori Bustard

kori bustard (Ardeotis kori) is the largest flying bird native to Africa. Photo by: Winfried Bruenken

5) Greater Rhea

Greater rhea (Rhea americana) is a flightless bird from eastern South America. Photo by: Rufus46

4) Emperor Penguin

Emperor penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri) is the biggest of all living penguin species. Photo by: penguins-world.com

3) Emu

Emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) is the second-largest living bird by height. Photo by: Benjamint444 

2) Southern Cassowary

The southern cassowary is Australia's heaviest flightless bird, but the emu is taller. Photo by: Marc Anderson

1) Ostrich

Ostrich can run at up to about 70 km/h (19 m/s; 43 mph). Photo by: BernardDUPONT

Those are 10 birds fall into this category. In the next article we will go into more details about each one of them. We might also want to know the largest ever bird that roams the earth.