Finally, despite being flightless birds, ostriches use their wings. They use them to balance and maneuver when they run so fast. The two biggest reasons why ostriches need to run are similar to most creatures: to escape predators and to look for food.
Living in the African savannah, ostriches have quite a few speedy predators. This may include cheetahs , lions, leopards, wild dogs, hyenas, and crocodiles. The others can easily keep pace, even outrun an ostrich. Thus, for survival, an ostrich would need to be able to run fast. Thankfully, another defense ostriches have against these animals is related to their running speed. Not only can an ostrich run very quickly because of their legs, but they can also use powerful kicks to defend themselves.
Add in a 4-inch 10 cm claw, and they make for intimidating prey. Moreover, ostriches have big, round and balanced bodies, which help them remain stable despite their great height. Their centre of gravity is perfectly tuned for running. Despite being flightless, ostriches use their large 2m wings to help stay balanced at high speeds, which is essential to ensure that they don't easily fall and injure themselves when running.
Ostriches are physiologically built for running. Their legs are extremely long with powerful, elastic tendons. Ostrich legs are highly evolved for running, and their centre of gravity ensures stability even at speeds of some 45mph - they're amongst the most capable long distance runners in the animal kingdom. Since they're so heavy and cannot fly, ostriches needed to evolve powerful legs to outrun predators and move between territories in pursuit of food, water and nesting grounds.
Their speed and stamina combined with their excellent sight and tendency to live in groups of 10 to 12 render ostriches highly resilient to predators.
Ostrich's incredible running abilities also enables them to find food and other resources amongst the vast arid Africa plains and savannah. Other birds would simply fly from place to place to find food, water, nesting sites, etc, but since ostriches are too heavy to fly, they adapted to running from A to B instead.
Ostriches can run over long distances without stopping. By sustaining a speed of around 30mph, an ostrich would cover the length of a marathon 26 miles in around 40 minutes or less. It's quite hard to estimate how far an ostrich could run in a day.
Whilst we know that ostriches are very capable long distance runners, there are few, if any, scenarios where humans would be able to measure how far ostriches can really travel before they reach their limits. Theoretically speaking, if an ostrich can sustain speeds of 30mph over 1 hour, it could cover some miles in a hour day with one hours rest between each 1-hour running period.
Ostriches probably don't run for the sake of it, but only when they need to escape danger or find food and water. There are two species of ostrich, the Common ostrich and the Somali ostrich. Both are exceptionally fast runners and can reach sprint speeds exceeding 45mph. This is true, but ostrich were never this heavy. These birds have been around for millions of years.
In fact, they are one of the oldest African animals. They were much lighter back then and had the ability to fly. Then the dinosaurs were wiped out and there was all this extra space for ostrich to run around.
Big flightless birds are scattered around the Southern Hemisphere. Ostrich are genetically similar to emu in Australia and rhea in South America. There are many genetic similarities between ostrich and kiwi birds from New Zealand, and the giant Madagascan elephant bird that is now extinct. All these birds share a common ancestor that flew around the world. Each evolved independently and lost the ability to fly for different reasons. Over millions of years ostrich adapted to extra space on the African savannah.
They wandered around eating all the vegetation that was previously consumed by dinosaurs. They grew fat and heavy from the extra food and eventually became too large for their wings to carry them. We have tailbones because we evolved from our primate ancestors who had tailbones. How fast an ostrich can run is all about these wings. With a span of more than two metres, ostrich use their wings to steer and balance themselves at high speed.
Just like an airplane, subtle wing movements help an ostrich maintain its balance when running at high speeds. Humans will eventually lose their tailbones. How fast can an ostrich run? Well, ostrich can cover up to five metres with a single stride!
Their light legs bounce across the African savannah as both feet leave the ground at the same time. Leopards and lions have thick leg muscles to help them run fast. The science behind running speed is the same whether you're Usain Bolt or a little snail.
You can run faster by lengthening your stride or increasing the frequency of your steps. Ostriches have the longest legs of any flightless bird, allowing them to take longer strides.
Their legs have all of their muscle close to their bodies. When compared to humans, ostriches have extraordinarily robust upper thigh and buttock muscles, but little calf muscles. Because their leg muscles are closer to their body, ostriches can swing their legs faster than most other animals. These muscles offer strength, and their long, light legs provide distance. These flightless birds don't appear to be in good running shape.
Isn't that large bouncing round tummy a speed stumbling block? No, not at all. Ostriches can keep all of their essential organs safe and protected behind their wings, allowing them to run faster.
Every bird has an extremely well-positioned center of gravity, which allows for tremendous mobility. Just observe how a bird lands with ease on any perch.
Because their center of gravity is located between their lengthy legs and wings, ostriches are ideally proportioned. So, no matter how fast they run or how out of control they appear to be, they are always perfectly balanced. Our leg muscles move us forward while we run. Our leg muscles, on the other hand, expend a lot of energy in order to keep us upright. Long-distance Olympic runners who look to run effortlessly are the finest. They expend the majority of their energy in order to go forward.
Most of us aren't Olympians when it comes to running. Because our muscles have to keep us moving in a straight line, we get tired easily. Ostriches have a very efficient strategy. They can move forward with all of their physical force because their center of gravity maintains them perfectly balanced.
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