Description of the Ostrich

The ostrich comes being used for the penalty production has a thousand years more than. He appears cited in the Old Will, and the commerce was intense in the Egyptian Age, Assyrian and Babylonian. Also in the times of the Cruzades, its pens had been brought for the Europe and had become famous adornments of the royalty as of the queens Maria Antonieta, of France and Elizabeth, England (séc. XVI and XVII). The habitat of the Ostrich if extended of the dry and barren regions of Africa, including Africa of the South, Africa East and the Saara, until the deserts of the Middle East. However the extreme hunting placed in chunk this species. In 1875, had the great slaughter for the collection of pens, many ostriches of the North of Africa had been exterminados (Jensen et al. 1992). In the end of century XIX, they existed few ostriches in the North of Africa and had been considered extinct in Asia Occidental person. Later, they had disappeared of the Syrian and, for 1930 return the ostrich almost that it is exterminado in Asia.

It was the domesticação that saved the species. In Africa of the South, in 1863, the first farms of ostriches, the works of Arthur Douglas had been established, whom it published in 1881 the first book on the subject; Ostrich Farming in South Africa. In 1913, the penalties of the ostrich occupied 4º place in the exportations of that country. With the arrival of 1ª and 2ª world-wide war, had a collapse of this market, and in reason of this, the South African farmers had started to explore other products of the ostrich: the meat and the leather. In few decades this activity if expanded and the birds had been taken for other countries in the North America being distinguished U.S.A., that today the bigger breeding of animals possesss as. In the South America, in Brazil it arrived commercially in 1994.

In Africa of the South, it has two different types of ostrich exploration: for the production of penalty and the production of meat and leather. In the farms directed toward the penalty exploration, as much the males how much to the females pair is plucked dumb occasion of the natural one, what he occurs about three times to each two years. In these farms, the eggs are incubados artificially, to prevent that the penalties are damaged when the bird is in the nest. In the natural incubation, the males and the females if revezam to shock eggs, lying down themselves on them. In general, the eggs are taken to be incubados are of the property, in incubatórios of third. After the birth, the younglings retake for the owner. This system will be able to come to be adopted in Brazil as form of selling at a loss the production, being able to be effected through cooperatives. In Africa of the South, the meat and the leather represent 85% of the invoicing of the industry of ostriches. The birds, in its majority bred confined, are abated between the 12 14 months of age. The farms that carry through all the stages of production, of the egg are few to abate it. Generally the tasks are divided in stages, a producer create the pintinhos until the age of three months and way, vende for one another producer that makes the recria until the seven or eight months, vendendo them then to be finished until the age abates it, that is, in volume of the fourteen months. About the 50 a thousand 120 a thousand ostriches they are abated annually for the attainment of meat, leather, bys-product and penalty. These data, relatively low, indicate that a significant number of birds is kept for the penalty production.

Africa of the South keeps one venda to regulate of ostrich penalty. The best ones are exported to the Europe and America, while the lesser penalties are used in the manufacture of espanadores. In U.S.A. they are being used also for the automobile industry, for the cleanness of the car before the painting, and for the manufacturers of computers, in virtue of its properties to attract dust particles.

Zoological classification
The classroom of the birds is divided in two superorders, the superorder Paleognathae (birds without keel, or crest to lamelar medium, in the bone esterno) and superorder Neognathae (birds with keel in the bone esterno). For the study of the fósseis, it is possible to recognize that the birds paleognatas were much more numerous that in the present time.

The ostrich belongs to the group of the ratitas birds, the superorder of the Paleognatas, and presents anatomical characteristics physiological that they differentiate it of the carinadas birds, between which: the absence of keel in the bone esterno, the loss of the flight capacity, the lack of the uropigiana gland and the separation of excrements and piss in the cloaca (Sick, 1985). The ratitas are, in general, considered the more primitive current birds of the filogenético point of view or, more accurately, they constitute an old group very, currently specialized (Cracraft, 1974; Sick, 1985).

Forty and seven species of extinct ratitas birds are known, between which they are mentioned you grind (Dinomithidae), the birds elephants (Aepyomithidae), the Sylvornls de Nova Caledônia and other species, related with the living groups (Sibley & Alquist, 1981). Ten species of current ratitas birds exist: the ostrich (Struthlo camelus) of Africa and Arabia, two species of emas (American Rhea and Pterocnemia pennata) of the South America, emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) of plains of Australia, three species of casuares (Casuarius bennetti, C. casuarius, C. unappendiculatus) of Australia, New Guiné and neighboring islands, and three species of kiwis (Apterix haastii. the owenil one, the australis) of the New Zelândia (Natura, 1987).

The morphologic similarities, molecular, genetic, parasitológicas and mannering biochemists, between the ratitas birds make to assume a common or monofilética origin of these birds. In the case of the ostriches and emas, considered, between the ratitas birds, the most specialized (Cracraft, 1974), one assumes that its separation has occurred has 80 million years (Sibley & Alhquist, 1981; Sibley & alhquist, 1986), when if it completed the separation of the two tectônicas plates that had given to origin á South America and Africa.

The geologic evidences indicate that these two continents had started if to separate for the south. Probable E that the existing contact between Brazil and the west of Africa, during average the Cretáceo period, has about 100 million years, already would have been insults in the delayed Cretáceo, has 80 million years approximately, for a 800 separation of about km On the other hand, the separation between Africa and the Canary Islands seem not to have been completed before 12 million years behind, to judge for the evidences gotten in the analyses of the rinds of found eggs of ostrich in the Island of Lanzarote, the east of the Canaries (Sauer & Rothe, 1972).


Classification

It exists an only species of ostrich and six subspecies, vulgarly grouped in three types: African black (the domestic), Redneck and Blueneck:

- Struthio camelus massaicus (Redneck): colored skin, found in the Kenya and Tanzânia;

- Struthio camelus molybdophanes (Blueneck): bluish skin, found in the Somália, Kenya and Etiópia, being the variety most distinct; it presents the top of the head without penalty; the pelagem of the neck and the thighs is bluish, the plumage of the body of the males is black and white and in the females the coloration is gray softer;

- Struthio camelus synacus (Blueneck): considered extinct in the decade of 1940; they inhabited the deserts of old Palestine and Pérsia; With regard to the vocalization, it can be said that this bird is dumb. The younglings of the ostrich piam since the final phase of the incubation, still inside of eggs, until the first months of life, with the time, leave to emit sounds. At the time of the acasalamento, however, the male, inflates the neck and emits sounds similar to roars, first short, later long.

- Struthio camelus camelus (Redneck): red skin - found in the North of Africa, they had its native area of the Mauritânia until the Etiópia, has the superior part of the head unprovided of penalty and encircled with small hard penalties of medium brown coloration, that go down for the posterior part of the neck: the penalties of the body are black, whereas of the wings and the tail they are white the skin of the neck is rósea; the penalties of the body of the female are brown-dark, being of the discoloured wings and the tail more;

- Struthio camelus australis (Blueneck): deriving animal of the South of Africa, Zimbábue and Namíbia, currently limited to the parks and small regions of the Namíbia;

- Struthio camelus to var domesticus (African Black): deriving of the crossing between synacus, camelus and australis, generally identified as S. c. australis; it presents penalty in the head, its neck is gray, reddening itself in the reproduction station, and the tail is brown.

A myth exists of that the ostrich embeds the head in the soil when rightened, but is not truth. The defensive behavior of these animals is well characteristic. When pegos of surprise, the younglings, youngest animals e eventually some adult, agacham themselves, straining the neck rente to the soil looking for to camouflage itself in the vegetation. Only when in the nest, the females hide the head in the sand, not to be seen in the distance. Perhaps it comes from there the popular myth on its behavior.

The domestic variety reaches the sexual maturity enters the two three years, being the females precocious of what the males. The male, when adult, it is greater that the female and has differentiated plumage, black pens for the body and whites in the tips of the wings and tail the female possesss acinzentada or amarronzada plumage. To the measure that the animal grows, the differences are accented between speak of the male and of the female, and, by 5-6 return months, the animals can be differentiated simply observing them, during the micção/defecação: partial inversion of the cloaca with exteriorização occurs of says it exactly that it can be visualized, in the distance. 

The ostrich possesss only two fingers, differing from ema, that it has three. E endowed with a pair of rudimentary wings, which does not possess amplitude for flight, but assists in the balance of the animal in the races. This bird can reach speeds of up to 80 Km/h. Possui body temperature enters 38,5 39ºC (is a temperature low for a bird; the hen, for example, has a body temperature around 41ºC). It is endowed with a digestive device, that if it initiates in the peak, following for faringe, esophagus, not presenting papo (common in the Neognatas birds), with two stomachs, glandular and another muscular one, long thin intestine, thick intestine (endowed with two well developed cecos, where intense microbiological digestion occurs. having the exploitation of the vegetal fiber), locking up in the cloaca. The excrements are excretadas separate of piss, which presents part eliminates and has broken solid. It is an animal that does not feel the palate of foods.

The longevity is another positive aspect of this species. In the nature, the ostrich if reproduces up to 30 the 40 years In captivity, the domestic is capable to procreate until the 50 years, being able to live up to 60 the 70 years an adult female on average puts 30 50 eggs per year in the period. Some poedeiras arrive to put 100 eggs more than. The eggs weigh 1,2 1,8kg on average (equivalent more than the 20 eggs of hen); if fertile, 00quando incubados, lead of 42 the 43 days to come out. The pintinhos are born with 25 cm of height and about 1 kg of alive weight.

They are sociable birds, live in bandos. In the nature, they live in set with other animals. Its behavior if modifies for occasion of the reproductive period, when some dominant males and females take attitudes aggressive. Its aggressive behavior is revealed through kicks that are sufficiently dangerous.

They can be grouped for acasalamento in colonies, in pairs or trios (two females and a male), where one of the females is dominant (the male chooses it). It has a difficult cohabitation between adult males, that is, in a commercial creation, the groups must be in separate poles. In the nature, the males at night shock eggs, the females during the day.

The age that demands greater attention is of the birth to the three months, frequently with bigger tax of mortality until the 4 weeks. Until the 3 6 months of age, they must be lodged in covered shed, aired, where they will remain during the night and for occasion of rains. Annex to the sheds, has the necessity of poles for exercise of the younglings, basic for its good development.

The ostrich is an animal that lives and if it reproduces in half-barren areas, being able to come to be created in the fields, closed and caatingas, without needing deforestation.

Its predators in the nature are lizards, gaviões, dog of the weeds, fox and others that could step on in the nests.