page_title: Common ostrich
section_title: Status and conservation
hierarchical_section_title: Common ostrich / Status and conservation
caption_attribution_description: A man kills ostriches in this scene from the Zliten mosaic.
context_page_description: The common ostrich or simply ostrich, is a species of large flightless bird native to certain large areas of Africa. It is one of two extant species of ostriches, the only living members of the genus Struthio in the ratite order of birds. The other is the Somali ostrich, which was recognized as a distinct species by BirdLife International in 2014 having been previously considered a very distinctive subspecies of ostrich.
  The common ostrich belongs to the order Struthioniformes. Struthioniformes previously contained all the ratites, such as the kiwis, emus, rheas, and cassowaries. However, recent genetic analysis has found that the group is not monophyletic, as it is paraphyletic with respect to the tinamous, so the ostriches are now classified as the only members of the order. Phylogenetic studies have shown that it is the sister group to all other members of Palaeognathae and thus the flighted tinamous are the sister group to the extinct moa. It is distinctive in its appearance, with a long neck and legs, and can run for a long time at a speed of 55 km/h with short bursts up to about 70 km/h, the fastest land speed of any bird.
context_section_description: The wild common ostrich population has declined drastically in the last 200 years, with most surviving birds in reserves or on farms. However, its range remains very large (9,800,000 square kilometres (3,800,000 sq mi)), leading the IUCN and BirdLife International to treat it as a species of Least Concern. Of its 5 subspecies, the Arabian ostrich (S. c. syriacus) became extinct around 1966, and the North African ostrich (S. c. camelus) has declined to the point where it now is included on CITES Appendix I and some treat it as Critically Endangered.
caption: Scene with common ostriches, Roman mosaic, 2nd century AD
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