| East Asian ostrich Temporal range:
| |
|---|---|
| |
| Egg and limb of S. anderssoni, Paleozoological Museum of China | |
Scientific classification 
| |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Aves |
| Infraclass: | Palaeognathae |
| Order: | Struthioniformes |
| Family: | Struthionidae |
| Genus: | Struthio |
| Species: | S. anderssoni
|
| Binomial name | |
| Struthio anderssoni Percy Lowe, 19311
| |
Struthio anderssoni, also known as the East Asian ostrich, is an extinct species of ostrich that lived in the Pleistocene and Holocene in China, Mongolia and Russia2. It was much larger than extant ostriches, with estimated mass of 250-270 kg.3
Taxonomy
In 2023, based on a re-examination of cast of a femur, Éric Buffetaut suggested that this species be moved to the genus Pachystruthio, noting that the main differences are in size and not morphology between the femur of Pachystruthio and that of anderssoni.3
Mikhailov and Zelenkov et al suggested this species is a larger bodied form of extant Ostriches.4
Description
Buffetaut and Angst conclude that Struthio anderssoni was significantly larger than the modern ostrich, with both eggs and skeletal remains indicating this.5
Femur
The femur of one specimen measures 355 mm in length (within the estimated range of 304 – 371 mm for the species) and 69 mm in minimum shaft width. A 187 mm minimum shaft circumference on a cast from this species gives a mass estimate of 258 kg.3 Another femur has a minimum shaft circumference of 190 mm, which gives it a mass estimate of 269 kg.67
Eggs
The eggs are larger than those of living ostriches, with Lowe estimating the eggs being 16.6-18.8 cm in length and 13.7-15.8 cm in width, with a mass of 1.89 – 2.8 kg. Later numbers by Buffetaut and Angst are slightly smaller but still larger than modern ostriches, being 1.7 – 2.6 kg, and with an egg volume of 1542 – 2399 cubic cm (as opposed to Lowe's estimate of 1655 – 2455 cubic cm). Despite this, eggs are not significantly thicker than those of modern ostriches, being 2.1 – 2.3 mm in width.6 A mass estimate based on the eggs results in 176 – 350 kg (mean 263 kg).7
Extinction
The youngest dates obtained by mass spectrometry analysis of eggshell fragments reveal that the species survived until at least 8.9 ka BP.8
See Also
References
References
- Lowe, Percy Roycroft (1931). "Struthious remains from northern China and Mongolia; with descriptions of Struthio wimani, S. anderssoni and S. mongolicus Spp. Nov". Palaeontologia Sinica, Series C. 6: 1–47.
- Boev, Zlatozar; Spassov, Nikolaï (September 2009). "First record of ostriches (Aves, Struthioniformes, Struthionidae) from the late Miocene of Bulgaria with taxonomic and zoogeographic discussion". Geodiversitas. 31 (3): 493–507. doi:10.5252/g2009n3a1. ISSN 1280-9659.
- Buffetaut, Eric (13 February 2023). "The Missing Late Pleistocene Ostrich Femur from Zhoukoudian (China): New Information Provided by a Rediscovered Old Cast". Diversity. 15 (2): 265. Bibcode:2023Diver..15..265B. doi:10.3390/d15020265.
- Mikhailov, Konstantin E.; Zelenkov, Nikita (September 2020). "The late Cenozoic history of the ostriches (Aves: Struthionidae), as revealed by fossil eggshell and bone remains". Earth-Science Reviews. 208 103270. doi:10.1016/j.earscirev.2020.103270.
- Buffetaut, Eric; Angst, Delphine (2021-01-26). "A Giant Ostrich from the Lower Pleistocene Nihewan Formation of North China, with a Review of the Fossil Ostriches of China". Diversity. 13 (2): 47. Bibcode:2021Diver..13...47B. doi:10.3390/d13020047. ISSN 1424-2818.
- Sánchez-Marco, Antonio; Amiot, Romain; Angst, Delphine; Bailon, Salvador; Betancort, Juan Francisco; Buffetaut, Eric; García-Castellano, Emma; Guillén-Vargas, Lourdes; Lazzerini, Nicolas; Lécuyer, Christophe; Lomoschitz, Alejandro; López-Jurado, Luis Felipe; Luján, Àngel H.; Perera-Betancort, María Antonia; Salesa, Manuel J. (2025-08-27). "Unraveling the Strange Case of the First Canarian Land Fauna (Lower Pliocene)". Fossil Studies. 3 (3): Supplementary table 1. doi:10.3390/fossils3030013. hdl:10261/399033. ISSN 2813-6284.
- Buffetaut1, Eric; Angst, Delphine (2017). "How Large was the Giant Ostrich of China?". EVOLUÇÃO - Revista de Geistória e Pré-História. 2 (1): 6–8. Retrieved 9 January 2023.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - Janz, Lisa; Elston, Robert G.; Burr, George S. (18 May 2009). "Dating North Asian surface assemblages with ostrich eggshell: implications for palaeoecology and extirpation". Journal of Archaeological Science. 36 (9): 1982–1989. Bibcode:2009JArSc..36.1982J. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2009.05.012.