How to tell them apart
- Count the toes. The ostrich is the only bird with two toes on each foot. The emu has three, all pointing forward.
- Look at the feathers. An adult male ostrich is black and white, and a female is grayish brown. An emu is shaggy and grayish brown all over, and each of its feathers has two plumes growing from one shaft.
- Look at the neck and legs. An ostrich has long, bare legs and a pale neck with feathers so short it looks bald. An emu's neck and head are mostly bare and bluish.
- Look at the wings. An ostrich holds out big wings for balance when it runs and spreads them in courtship displays. An emu's wings are tiny, under 8 inches long.
Size
The ostrich is the largest and heaviest living bird. An adult male stands about 7 to 9 feet tall and weighs about 220 to 300 pounds, and a female is smaller, about 5.5 to 6 feet.
The emu is the second largest living bird. It stands about 5 to 6 feet tall and weighs about 66 to 121 pounds.
Speed
The ostrich is the fastest running bird in the world. It can sprint at about 40 to 43 miles an hour in short bursts, and a single stride can cover 10 to 16 feet. The emu tops out at about 30 miles an hour but can keep it up for quite a distance, with strides of almost 9 feet. Neither one can fly.
Eggs
An emu egg is dark bluish green when fresh, fading lighter in the sun, and weighs about 1 to 1.4 pounds, as much as 10 to 12 chicken eggs. The female lays the eggs and walks away, and the male sits on them alone for about eight weeks, hardly ever leaving the nest.
An ostrich egg is the largest egg of any living bird: glossy, cream to white, about 6 inches long and around 3 pounds, the weight of about 24 chicken eggs. Ostriches share the work. The main hen usually sits on the nest by day and the male by night.
Where they come from
Emus are native only to Australia, where they live across most of the continent and move with the rain to find food. Ostriches are native to Africa, in savanna and desert, and today live mostly south of the Sahara and in East Africa.
What they have in common
Both are ratites, the group of flightless birds with small wings and a flat breastbone that has no keel to anchor flight muscles. The rhea, the cassowary and the kiwi are ratites too. Both have no teeth and swallow pebbles that grind their food in the gizzard, and both can live for decades in good care.
Ryu and the emus at Kaleidoscope Desert
Ryu is the one ostrich here. The emus are a crew of their own, Whitey the white emu, Blondie, Martini, Spicoli and Night Moves among them, and they all roam the grounds with the zebra, the mini horses, the goats and the pigs.
Kaleidoscope Desert is a nonprofit art and animal sanctuary on 7.5 acres in Morongo Valley, California, 15 minutes from Joshua Tree and 20 minutes from Palm Springs, where more than 100 animals roam free among the art.
On the Sanctuary Tour you walk the grounds where both birds roam free, so you can see the difference for yourself. You meet them on the Sanctuary Tour, a guided walk of about 90 minutes that runs daily, with someone who knows every resident by name and their stories. The animals come over on their own terms. Every visit is for adults, 18 and over.
100% of proceeds go to the animals: their rescue, their care, and the sanctuary they live in. Kaleidoscope Desert Foundation is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit.