Struthio is a genus of birds belonging to the Struthioniformes order, which includes ostriches. It is a member of the Palaeognathae infra-class of flightless birds known as ratites, which includes emus, rheas, and kiwis. The common ostrich and the Somali ostrich are the two existing species of ostrich. They are huge, flightless African birds that lay the biggest eggs of any living terrestrial creature. They are the fastest birds on land, capable of running at speeds of up to 70 km/h (43.5 mph). It is cultivated all over the world, especially for its feathers, which are used as ornaments and feather dusters. Its skin is also utilized in the manufacture of leather goods.

Paleocene taxa from Europe are the oldest fossils of ostrich-like birds. Palaeotis and Remiornis from the Middle Eocene, as well as unidentified ratite remnants, have been discovered throughout Europe and Africa during the Eocene and Oligocene periods. These might have been ostriches’ ancestors, although their position is debatable, and they could really represent many lineages of flightless paleognaths.

The oldest fossils of this genus date from the early Miocene (20–25 mya) and come from Africa, therefore it’s assumed that they came from there. They then expanded to Eurasia during the middle to late Miocene (5–13 mya).

They had developed into the bigger size that we are familiar with by around 12 mya. They had migrated to Mongolia and, subsequently, southern Africa by this time. While the connections between African fossil species are rather clear, numerous Asian ostrich species have been reported from incomplete remains, and their interrelationships and relationships with African ostriches are unclear. Ostriches are thought to have gone extinct in China only around or after the end of the last ice age, based on pictures found on archaic pottery and petroglyphs.

Struthio ostriches coexisted alongside the eogruids, a group of flightless didactyl birds. Despite the fact that Olson categorized these birds as stem-ostriches in 1985, they are widely thought to be linked to cranes, with any similarities due to convergent evolution. The demise of the eogruids has been attributed to ostrich competition, however this has never been proven, since both populations coexist in certain areas.

Ostriches are exclusively found in the wild in Africa today, where they may be found in a variety of open dry and semi-arid environments including savannas and the Sahel, both north and south of the equatorial forest zone. The Somali ostrich is found in the Horn of Africa, where it developed separately from the common ostrich due to the East African Rift’s physical barrier.

The Masai subspecies of the common ostrich coexists in some regions with the Somali ostrich, but behavioral and ecological differences prevent interbreeding. By the middle of the twentieth century, Arabian ostriches had been driven to extinction in Asia Minor and Arabia, and attempts in Israel to replace them with North African ostriches had failed. In Australia, wild colonies of common ostriches have emerged.

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