Rhea, common name for a South American bird of the family Rheidae, which is related to the ostrich. Weighing from 44 to 55 lb (20–25 kg) and standing up to 60 in. (152 cm) tall, the rhea is sl...

Tinamou, common name for a South American game bird related to the ostrich. It is protectively colored in browns and grays. The females are the aggressors in courtship, and the males incubate ...

Cassowary, common name for a flightless, swift-running, pugnacious forest bird of Australia and the Malay Archipelago, smaller than the ostrich and emu. The plumage is dark and glossy and the ...

Kiwi or apteryx, common name for the smallest member of an order of primitive flightless birds related to the ostrich, the emu, and the cassowary. The kiwi, named by the Maoris for its shrill,...

Emu or emeu, common name for a large, flightless bird of Australia, related to the cassowary and the ostrich. It is 5 to 6 ft (150–180 cm) tall and a very swift runner. The head and neck are f...

Moa [Maori], common name for an extinct flightless bird of New Zealand related to the kiwi, the emu, the cassowary, and the ostrich. The various species ranged in size from that of a turkey to...

Head, Edith, 1907–81, American costume designer, b. Los Angeles, Calif. She began to design costumes for the motion pictures in the early 1930s, working at Paramount for most of her career and...

Elephant bird, extinct, flightless bird of the family Aepyornithidae. Once native to the island of Madagascar, these gigantic birds may have survived until as late as 1649. Today, they are kno...

Ratite, common and general term for a variety of flightless birds characterized by a flat, raftlike sternum rather than the keeled sternum, designed to support flight muscles, typical of most ...

Wings, flight organs of the bird, the bat, and the insect. Birds' wings are pectoral appendages that are basically the same in skeletal structure as the forelimbs of all higher vertebrates, in...