Its name is called the Elephant Bird, which can weigh half a ton and exceed 3 meters in height. Its bird egg is the size of seven ostrich eggs, about 12 kilograms, and despite this, it only accounts for a very small part of the weight of the elephant bird.

Do you know what the biggest bird in the world is? Its name is called elephant bird , and its weight can reach half a ton and its height exceeds 3 meters.

The largest bird in the world - the elephant bird

. Its bird egg is equivalent to 7 ostrich eggs. is about 12 kg . Despite this, it only accounts for a very small part of the elephant bird's weight.

But now there is a kind of bird, It only has one or two eggs at a time , but it almost covers the entire abdominal cavity. This bird is kiwi bird .

Why is the egg of a kiwi bird so big? Will you not die if you give birth to such a "big dome"?

What kind of bird is a kiwi bird? Does it have any special meaning?

small kiwi bird

Next, let’s learn about this kind of kiwi bird that can give birth to accounts for 1/3 of your own weight and is also marked as national bird . Why does it take such a big egg?

The egg is bigger than the head

The body length of the kiwi bird is about 50 cm, which is about the same size as domestic chickens. In theory, the eggs they lay should be similar.

But you look at this X-ray image , this is what a kiwi bird took when she was pregnant with an egg.

This egg accounts for 1/4 of its body size, and there is a 6-fold gap between them compared to eggs.

Pregnant kiwi x-ray photo

When this egg is born, its weight is 1/3 of the weight of the kiwi bird.

• The pregnancy process of kiwi birds is very hard

  Although not every kiwi bird will have such a big egg, generally speaking, for a 2500-gram kiwi bird, the average weight of eggs born in is 371 grams , accounting for 15% of the body weight.

  But even so, such a large proportion is exaggerated enough. After all, an ostrich egg is only 1% of the weight of ostrich .

  It can be seen that kiwi birds work extremely hard when they are pregnant. In order to ensure that the eggs can develop normally, they need to consume more than 3 times the usual calories every day.

  

  Kibetes birds will be so big, which is incredible!

  And such a large egg almost makes the abdomen of the Kiwi bird close to the ground, especially when it is about to lay eggs, you have to spread your legs to maintain a comfortable posture.

  Fortunately, the birds of the Japanese have cavities that are different from most birds. Their bones are almost filled with bone marrow . Just like mammals, the bones are hard enough to support such a large egg.

  In the last few days when the eggs were laid, eggs almost filled the abdominal cavity with , resulting in no extra space to digest food, so the kiwi birds had to start fasting.

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    Does it look like a walking kiwi

    The newly born young kiwi bird already has the ability to run around and avoid natural enemies. Compared with this ability, it saves a lot of trouble for every mother.

    After birth, young birds can forage themselves in about a week, , and the eggs of kiwi birds contain 65% nutrients . These nutrients are enough to maintain their living needs during this period.

    • Why do you lay such a big egg?
    Scientists have a lot of speculation about this.

    At first they thought this was a bug in the evolution of kiwis, and they were supposed to be a large bird a long time ago.

    

    Kekibird skeleton structure

    According to the evolutionary branches, it can be found that kibirds and other giant wingless birds belong to an evolutionary branch, It has a certain relationship with elephant birds, ostrichs and Emu .

    Later, due to some natural factors, their size continued to shrink. Because they now lack natural enemies and have enough food in their habitat, they have been raising such a large egg.

    However, later scientists judged the characteristics of the kiwi puppies and the skeleton of the kiwi bird, and the skeleton of the kiwi bird, and the statement was more like a mammal, so this statement was downplayed.

    Another way of saying that is that in order to allow their cubs to have a greater survival rate, the kiwi bird gave birth to such a large egg .

    

    Gigibeans' appearance structure

    When pregnant and giving birth, most of the energy required by gigabeans comes from their own reserve energy and rarely rely on additional predation, so they rarely encounter natural enemies due to predation.

    Moreover, the kiwi bird's egg has a hard shell, which can prevent some animals such as mice from destroying it.

    And as mentioned earlier, the kiwi cubs that broke out of their shells already have enough strength to resist the damage caused to them by the outside world.

    So from this point of view, the kiwi birds are also considering the cubs for their hard work to give birth to such a big egg.

    

    The world is strange, the kiwi bird is cute,

    • The volume of the egg does not affect the production

      A female kiwi bird generally needs to grow to

    years old . Unlike most birds, it has two functional ovaries, and basically each ovary can ovulate.

    The process of kiwi birds from pregnancy to laying eggs takes about 30 days , but despite the huge size of these eggs, they lay eggs very quickly.

    kiwi birds are also monogamous, and to a large extent, females have relatively strong power. When the female lays eggs, the males will take over the task of hatching.

    Normally, if both ovaries have eggs, , then the time between the two eggs is about 25 days .

    

    Kibetan

    According to research, A kiwi can lay up to 100 eggs in a lifetime .

    flying national bird

    And in addition to laying eggs, they have also won the title of New Zealand national bird.

    But it is just that cannot fly .

    is indeed like this. The wings of the kiwi bird have basically degenerated. can prove that the traces of its wings have been buried in the feathers. .

    And its feathers are like mammalian hair, very soft, and do not have the feathers of ordinary birds, so it is more like a mammal.

    

    The kiwi bird that is hatching eggs

    Although it cannot fly, it can run very fast like an ostrich, and can reach 10 mph .

    • national bird - kiwi
    . As a unique bird in New Zealand, the kiwi is also regarded as national bird . In the eyes of New Zealand, the kiwi has special living habits, so it is also called "kiwi".

    Speaking of strangeness, I wonder if you have thought of kiwi .

    And New Zealanders really regard kiwi as their national fruit because they look like kiwis, which is enough to reflect their love for kiwis.

    

    The noble national bird in the eyes of New Zealanders

    What's more amazing is that the English name of the kiwi is "kiwi", and when New Zealanders introduce themselves, they hardly say "I'm a New Zealander", but "I'm a kiwi".

    I don’t know if they are acting cute or really like Jiwei.

    In order to reflect their protection and love for national birds, You can see such a street sign even on the roads in New Zealand. On the yellow signboard, a kiwi bird is drawn .

    In fact, this is a reminder to everyone that there are birds in Jiwei here, so you need to pay attention to the road conditions when driving.

    

    The street sign on the road in New Zealand is painted with a kiwi bird

    . This is why the kiwi bird is very docile and often appears in places where humans live, so it is inevitable that there will be a tragic incident of being hit by a car.

    • Strange Chibi

    Apart from the above special features, there is another point that the nostrils of the kiwi birds grow at the top of the beak, which is a unique feature among birds.

    Kibi is a night bird. They nest in caves during the day, and sleeps for 20 hours without any problem .

    In fact, there is a reason for this. After all, you have a pair of breast eyes. If you are moving during the day, you will either hit trees everywhere or plant and fight.

    The eyes don't play any role in the daytime, and they are easily attacked by other animals if you are not careful.

    

    Kivi birds, which are the god of sleeping,

    , so they can only rely on their superior sense of smell to prey on at night. It is understood that kiwi birds have a sense of smell that is slightly inferior to vulture , and they can rank second in that place.

    The long and sharp beak, combined with the sensitive sense of smell, when preying, it is accurate to grab each other.

    Early any problem with earthworms, spiders, insects, etc. 7-inch underground bugs can be caught by it .

    Occasionally they will improve their food for themselves, go to the river to catch some crayfish and eel .

    • protection of kiwi birds

      Although kiwi birds are now regarded as national birds, they have also been invaded by humans and domestic cats in the past.

      

      kiwi birds are actually afraid of the "cute" domestic cat

      According to records, more than a century ago, the number of kiwi birds in New Zealand could be calculated in millions, but now the number has dropped sharply.

      Among them, the number of brown dimensions in the North Island has dropped to about

    5,000 , so it is listed as an endangered species by International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources .

    Fortunately, New Zealand timely protects several different kinds of kiwi birds. While takes measures, it also legislates for it.

    In areas where kiwi birds are infested, curfews have been imposed on domestic cats to reduce the chances of kiwi birds being preyed at night.

    

    Run freely

    Now the number of kiwi birds in some reserves is increasing year by year. I believe that in the near future, kiwi birds can restore their former prosperity.