The Ancestors of Ostriches and Emus Were Long-Distance Fliers – Here’s How We Worked This Out

The ancestors of ostriches and emus were long-distance fliers – here’s how we worked this out

Oleksii Synelnykov/ShutterstockAside from being a delight to watch, flight in birds is regarded by many cultures as a symbol of freedom, and a source of inspiration for humans to build our own flying machines. This makes those birds that have given up flight for a land-based way of life seem all the more intriguing. In our new study of a 56 million-year-old fossil bird, my colleagues and I show that the distant ancestors of ostriches and other l…