Emu

About the emu

The emu is a species of flightless bird endemic to Australia, where it is the tallest native bird, and it ranks as the third-tallest living bird overall, behind only the common ostrich and Somali ostrich among its African ratite relatives. It is the sole living member of its genus, Dromaius, and its native range once covered most of the Australian mainland, though the Tasmanian, Kangaroo Island and King Island subspecies all went extinct after European settlement began in 1788.

Emus have soft, shaggy brown feathers, a long neck and long legs, standing up to 1.9 m (6 ft 3 in) tall. Measured from bill to tail they run 55 to 65 in (139–164 cm), with males averaging 58.5 in (148.5 cm) and females slightly larger at 61.7 in (156.8 cm); females also tend to be wider across the rump. Adults weigh 40 to 132 lb (18–60 kg), averaging 69 to 82 lb (31.5–37 kg) between the sexes — slightly heavier on average than an emperor penguin. The wings are vestigial, with a wing chord of only about 8 in (20 cm) and a small claw at each tip, but the legs are powerful: emus can run at 48 km/h (30 mph), taking strides of about 3.3 ft (100 cm) at a walk and up to 9 ft (275 cm) at a full gallop. Sharp claws on the toes serve as their main defensive weapon, used to kick opponents.

The bird's neck is pale blue and shows through sparse feathering, and its plumage shifts with the environment — birds in arid, red-soil country take on a rufous tint, while those in damp habitats run darker. A unique feature of emu feathers is a double rachis growing from a single shaft. The species has good eyesight and hearing, and its eyes are protected from wind-blown dust by translucent, horizontally sliding nictitating membranes.

Behavior and diet

Emus are diurnal, spending the day foraging, preening, dust-bathing and resting; they are generally gregarious outside the breeding season, foraging in groups where some individuals stay vigilant while others feed. They are capable swimmers when needed, though they usually only take to water when an area floods or a river must be crossed. At night, emus settle at sunset but do not sleep continuously — they wake roughly every ninety minutes to stand, feed briefly or defecate, for a total of around seven hours of sleep across each 24-hour period.

The species is omnivorous, foraging on a range of plants and insects, and can go for weeks without eating; when water is available, however, an emu will drink large amounts at once. Vocalizations center on booming and grunting sounds produced through an inflatable throat pouch whose pitch the bird can control. Most booming is done by females as part of courtship, territory announcement and threats to rivals — a high-intensity boom can carry 2 km (1.2 mi) — while most grunting comes from males, used in territorial defense and courtship.

Breeding takes place in May and June, and females compete with each other for mates, sometimes mating with several males and laying multiple clutches in one season. Incubation duties fall entirely to the male, who barely eats or drinks during this period and loses significant weight as a result. Eggs hatch after about eight weeks, and the fathers alone raise the chicks, which reach full size at around six months but may stay with the family unit until the next breeding season.

Range and habitat

Emus are found across most of mainland Australia, in both inland and coastal habitats, though they have become uncommon along the once-common east coast even as agricultural development and stock-watering infrastructure have expanded their range through the arid interior. The birds are most at home in savannah woodland and sclerophyll forest, and least common in heavily populated areas and in arid zones that receive less than 24 in (600 mm) of rain a year.

Emus typically travel in pairs, though they gather into large flocks when a shared need to reach a new food source arises, and they can cover long distances to do so. Movement patterns differ by region: in Western Australia, emus follow a fairly predictable seasonal pattern, moving north in summer and south in winter, while on the east coast their movements appear more random.

Conservation status

The emu is common enough across its range to be rated Least Concern (LC) by the IUCN. That overall security does not extend evenly to every population, however — some local groups are considered endangered, and every insular subspecies, on Tasmania, Kangaroo Island and King Island, had gone extinct by the 1800s.

The main pressures on surviving emus include egg predation, particularly by invasive species, along with roadkill and habitat fragmentation. Despite these localized threats, the species remains an important cultural symbol in Australia, appearing on the national coat of arms and on coinage, and features prominently in Indigenous Australian mythology.