Asian ostrich

Asian ostrich Temporal range: 3.6–0.008 Ma PreЄ Є O S D C P T J K Pg N ↓ Early Pliocene to Early Holocene
Asian ostrich skeleton
Conservation status
Extinct  (before 13,000-7,000 BC)
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Order:	Struthioniformes
Family:	Struthionidae
Genus:	Struthio
Species:	S. asiaticus
Binomial name
Struthio asiaticus Milne-Edwards, 1871[1]
Synonyms
Struthio indicus (Bidwell, 1910)

The Asian or Asiatic ostrich (Struthio asiaticus), is an extinct species of ostrich that ranged from Morocco, the Middle East to China and Mongolia. Fossils date from the upper Pliocene to the early Holocene (3.6-.008mya).^[2]

Asian ostrich egg shells

Asian ostriches were widespread around Europe and Asia. They also used to live in northern India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and southern Siberia. In China, it is known that Asiatic ostriches became extinct at the end or shortly after the end of the last Ice Age.

See also

Late Quaternary prehistoric birds

Footnotes

References

• Sharpe, R. Bowdler (1899). A Handlist of the Genera and Species of Birds. Vol. I. Red Lion Court Fleet Street, London UK: Taylor and Francis. p. 2. Retrieved 1 February 2010. 

• Paleobiology Database (2012). "Struthio asiaticus". Paleobiology Database. Paleobiology Database. Retrieved 14 Jun 2012. 

• Janz, Lisa; Robert G. Elston; George S. Burr (2009). Dating North Asian Surface Assemblages with Ostrich Eggshell: implications for palaeoecology and extirpation 36. p. 1982. Retrieved 2014-04-17.