Explore: Ratites

Palaeognathae consists of ratites and the flighted Neotropic tinamous (compare to Neognathae). Unlike other flightless birds, the ratites have no keel on their

avian history. Moreover, tinamou nesting within flightless ratites indicates ancestral ratites were volant and multiple losses of flight occurred independently

Zealand ratites, the moa, recent DNA studies have identified its closest relative as the extinct elephant bird of Madagascar, and among extant ratites, the

This is a list of ratites. Extinct (EX) – No known living individuals Extinct in the wild (EW) – Known only to survive in captivity, or as a naturalized

tinamous within the ratites, more derived than ostriches, or rheas and as a sister group to emus and kiwis, and this makes ratites paraphyletic. A related

sister group to ratites. The nine species of moa were the only wingless birds, lacking even the vestigial wings that all other ratites have. They were

representatives are often known as ratites), and their closest living relatives are kiwi (found only in New Zealand), suggesting that ratites did not diversify by vicariance

infra-class Palaeognathae, a diverse group of flightless birds also known as ratites that includes the emus, rheas, cassowaries, kiwi and the extinct elephant

regarded as the sister group of the flightless ratites, but recent work places them well within the ratite radiation as most closely related to the extinct

the ratites and tinamous. The ratites are mostly large and long-legged, flightless birds, lacking a keeled sternum. Traditionally, all the ratites were