The Ostrich (Struthio camelus), also known as the common ostrich, is a species of ratite native to Saharan and Sub-Saharan Africa. They are the largest birds in the world, with large males weighing up to 300 lbs. They can grow up to 9 ft tall, making it the 3rd tallest land animal after the giraffe and the African bush elephant. The males and females are quite easy to tell apart. The males have black feathers with white tipped tail and wing feathers, while the female has gray or brown feathers. These dull feathers help them camouflage like a bush when sitting on the nest. The males are also bigger and taller, and have a peach or pinkish colored neck and a red beak, while the females just have a gray neck and a black beak. Ostriches are the only birds to not have tiny hooks to keep their feathers together, making their feathers very fluffy and easy to part. This keeps them warm at night when it can get surprisingly cold.
Ostriches are very fast and can run up to 40 mph, making them the fastest animal on 2 legs. They are the only birds to have only 2 toes, making their feet hoof-like so they can run very fast. An ostrich's stride can be up to 13 ft long, letting them cover a lot of ground in a single stride. Each leg has elastic tendons that store energy, so every time their foot lands on the ground, they immediately bounce back up. This requires little effort, so they can cruise along at 30 mph for over half an hour. An ostrich has such good endurance, they could run a marathon in under an hour, which would take the average human 4 to 5 hours.
Ostriches are very protective parents and protect their nest aggressively. They lay the largest eggs of any bird. Each egg is the size of a softball, and the chicks weigh up to 3 lbs when born, the size of an adult chicken. Many females will lay their eggs in one males nest, along with the eggs of the male's mate. They both will guard the nest, and the female will sit on it for a few hours each day, while the male feeds on grasses and insects. They will charge at predators, flailing their wings to appear even larger and hiss at them. These eggs are even more nutritious than chicken eggs, so lots of predators are after them like jackals, honey badgers and caracals. There are still predators that will go after adult ostriches, such as lions, African leopards, African wild dogs, cheetahs and spotted hyenas. Luckily, ostriches have a very powerful kick. The longer toe has a long claw, which can be used to injure and disembowel predators. The force of the kick alone can kill a human. Ostriches also have very sharp eyesight. They have the biggest eyes of any land animal, even bigger than giraffe eyes. Each eye has a 3rd eyelid that moves sideways to clean the eye. They can even turn their heads completely backwards to spot predators from behind.