At work we are using a photo of an emu to illustrate an article, and concerns have been raised that it might in fact be an ostrich. The photo shows only the head and neck. Is there a foolproof way of telling which it is? (No, we don’t trust photo library captions…)
Emus tend to be sort of a dusty brownish gray all over, while ostriches have light-colored necks and heads with darker bodies.
Emus:
http://www.bigadventures.com/photo/oregoncoast/emu.jpg
http://www.eryptick.net/oz2001/tidbin-emu-011028.jpg
http://wds.bologna.enea.it/vignette/vignette_foto/02-09-09-emu.jpg
Ostriches:
http://www.mindspring.com/~dirkv/animal/ostrich.jpg
Hmm. I did do a Google Image search, but the results seemed inconclusive - not least because I suspect many of the images I found were incorrectly captioned.
The pic I’ve got seems to be a weird hybrid, in that it has a dark neck (consistent with emu), which is almost bald/plucked looking, but the head is lighter, and the beak is reddish in colour (consistent with ostrich), rather than grey/black.
On balance, this one is probably closest, so I’m thinking we got ourselves an ostrich. Damn.
As you can see from the photos, an emu has dark feathers on the top of the head and on the side of the neck, and the base of the neck is shaggy. The skin on the side of the neck is often bright blue, sometimes blue-gray.
Ostriches have relatively much longer and thinner necks. The neck and head are virtually bare. The head and neck can be pink or gray, but they don’t have the bluish patches on the side of the neck that emus do.
If you can post I link I can verify which one it is.
I don’t have a link, as it’s off a photo CD. But I’m fairly satisfied it’s an ostrich with a rather dark neck. Thanks.
I think if it looks really pretty it’s probably an Emu. Those Ostriches are so ugly.
There are two kinds of ostrich, often considered different species. The widespread Masai Ostrich has pinkish neck and legs, while those of the Somali Ostrich are bluish.
Both kinds are shown in this page