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.

Largest Living Bird: Kori Bustard

Kori bustard (ardeotis kori), is the largest flying birds. Photo by: Winfried Bruenken

Kori Bustard (Ardeotis kori) one of the largest living bird in the world today. It's also one of the largest flying birds that still exist. It is the member of the bustard family that consists of four species throughout the world - ranging from Africa, India, and Australia.

Being the largest flying bird, kori bustard flies a short distance and only when needed. It will spend most of its time on the ground forage occasionally in low bushes and trees. Kori bustard is omnivorous birds and will eat almost anything from insects, small reptiles and small mammals, and also seeds and fruits. Being heavy, kori bustard will try to avoid flying unless necessary.

Male kori bustard (A. k. struthiunculus) displaying in Ngorongoro Conservation Area. Photo by: David Berkowitz

Female of the nominate race near Etosha National Park, Namibia. Photo by: Hans Hillewaert

The male kori bustard is larger than female can reach up to 120 to 150 cm (3 ft 11 in to 4 ft 11 in) in height with wingspan about 230 to 275 cm (7 ft 7 in to 9 ft 0 in). Its weigh can reach up to 7 and 18 kg (15 and 40 lbs). Even though they were reports mentioned about the outsized specimens with weighing up to 23 kg (51 lb) and more.

Africa has the most diversity of the bustard species and spread throughout the continent. Among them are Denham's bustard (Neotis denhamii) and Ludwig's bustard (Neotis luwigii). While, Arabian bustard (Ardeotis arabs) has its range on the East Africa.

Same as many other birds, kori bustard has its own courtship displays to impress the females. The courtship display will followed by low-pitched booming noise with inflated neck where the male will look larger. Several males will be compete among each other. There will be fight between males with serious battle in order to win the females. One male will mates will several females in his territory – different from albatrosses and swan that will mate only with one female for long period of time.

Richard Meinertzhagen holds a shot kori bustard near Nairobi in 1915, illustrating the bird's huge size. Photo by: unknown

Kori bustard flying over the grassland. Photo by: RICHARD AND EILEEN FLACK

Kori bustard's chick, between keeper's hands. Photo by: nationalzoo.si.edu

Only female kori bustard will look over their eggs. Usually 2 eggs are laid, and seldom 1 or 3. Female built their nest within the tree shrubs, termite mount or an outcrop of rocks. Their plumage colour and behaviour make their nest is hard to be spotted.

Young chicks will grow up quickly and ready to follow their mother few hours after hatched. They fledge at 4 to 5 weeks old, but only ready to fly until 4 to 5 months. Usually one of the two young make it to adulthood. Living their mother in their second year, and ready to breed when they become fully matures around three to four years old.

Kori bustard is listed Near Threatened by IUCN (2013). They are rarely since in human populated areas. The development such as power lines can kill this bird (the powerlines in Karoo kill 22 kori bustard during 5 months period). More study should be conducted in order to help this bird from extinction.

Largest Living Bird: Wandering Albatross

Gliding through the air current. Photo by: worldatlas.com

Wondering albatross is listed as one of the largest bird live in the world today. It’s also known as snowy albatross, white-winged albatross or goonie (Diomedea exulans) is large seabird that lives in the Southern Ocean. Albatross known for its gliding skills where some individual known to circumnavigate the Southern Ocean three times (covering more than 120,000 km or 75,000 miles) in one year.

It takes 11 years for wondering albatross to become mature and ready to mate. While they are mate for life and breed in every two years make their population rate decreasing every year (for South Georgia Islands population). They only produce one egg at a time. This makes the population growth very slow even though they can reach life span up to 50 years.

Wandering albatross of South Georgia Island. Photo by: Brocken Inaglory

Gesture to impress. Photo by: Jerry Gillham

The wandering albatross has the longest wingspan that ranging from 2.51 to 3.5 m (8 ft 3 in to 11 ft 6 in). This makes them a great glider – they can keep on gliding for several hours without flapping their wings. They actually use less energy while flying than when they sit in their nest. Their capability makes them rarely seen on land and gather only to breed, by form large colonies on remote islands.

Albatrosses are night feeders and feed on cephalopods (squid, octopuses, and cuttlefish), small fish, and crustaceans and almost anything that float on the sea. They usually follow ships in hopes of feeding on its garbage. In order to feed they also make shallow dive. They can eat as much that they become unable to fly and just float on the water.

Checking for eggs. Photo by: Jerry Gillham

Wandering Albatross and chick on South Georgia. Photo by: Steph Winnard / Prince Images 

Being so big and spend most of their time in flight, wandering albatross have almost no natural predators. But since they were heavily hunted they are listed as vulnerable under Conservation status by IUCN. Even though they are no longer being hunted today, their population growth is very slow and pollution (such as plastics and oils) might be the main contributor to their death.

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.

The Largest Hotel In The World, First World Hotel, Pahang, Malaysia

First World Hotel, before the upgrade.

When we talk about something largest in the world, it’s already become something special to looking up to. So with the Largest Hotel in the World, few hotel operators in the world try their best to make sure they don’t lose this title!

First World Hotel and Plaza located in Genting Highlands, Pahang, Malaysia with total of 7,351 rooms, has set the Guinness World Record for the largest hotel in the world (by number of rooms). It’s lost its title to The Venetian in Las Vegas when it’s opened on January 2008. By 2015 it’s regained back the title with the opening of a new block. The hotel has received 35.5 million guests since 2006.

Genting Highlands Resort, is a large complex in the top of the mountains.

First World Hotel is one part for the whole Genting Hinglands Resort areas that consist of hotels, malls, casinos, theme parks, convention centres, and concert hall with many other attractions nearby. Currently the whole Genting Highlands Resort is under upgrading to allow the construction of the world’s first 20th Century Fox World that will be opened in 2018.

There are not many things to do during this upgrading period and Genting Highlands still been visit by tourist from inside and outside of the country.

It is the area where this resort is located that makes people keep on coming. The cooling breeze and the surrounding nature provide relaxing moments during their time staying here. This is totally different from nearby city of Kuala Lumpur with its rushing and busy traffics.

The upgrading of the whole complex will include the transport facilities upgrade with more automation stations for cable car ticket to the check-in for the hotel. Even though the complex’s upgrade is still in progress, it might be wonderful to check in just to know what to expect when its fully completed.