Asian Ostrich
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Asian Ostrich | ||||||||||||||
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Conservation status | ||||||||||||||
Fossil
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Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
Struthio asiaticus Milne-Edwards, 1871 |
The Asian Ostrich (Struthio asiaticus) was found in the Pliocene from Central Asia to China. In China, ostriches are known to have become extinct only around or even after the end of the last ice age; images of ostriches have been found there on prehistoric pottery and as petroglyphs indicating that they were around at the same time as humans first reached China.
The Asian Ostrich is also thought to be one of the origins for the Chinese phoenix (Fenghuang).
It probably behaved much like the Ostrich of today. It is believed to have gone extinct because of changing climate altering habitat, and overexploitation by humans.