Talk:Rhea (bird)
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[edit] Rheally confused
[edit] Species
The text mentions Rhea Americanus. One figure mentions Rhea americana and Rhea pennata. Another figure mentions six species. Have the rhea been evolving while the article was written?
[edit] Trivia
- In Patagonia I saw them swallowing bolts and keys (instead of rocks).
- In Buenos Aires their eggs were a treat and to empty them without breaking the shell, a challenge.
- Mental 'rithmetic: amount in centimeters, double it once, double it again, divide by 100 (move decimal point 2 places to the left) and you have the amount in inches only 1.6% larger.Jclerman 23:41, 31 October 2005 (UTC)
How come only metric measurements? Ortolan88
- Becaue that is what is used in science and in the whole world outside the US. Also was the choice of the person writing the entry. If you like, you can add American units in parenthesis after the metric ones. --maveric149
Condecension breeds condecension, maveric. You told me that. I have heard of the metric system and I also know how to do simple arithmetic. But I can't do the calculations in my head and I don't see why we should expect our readers to do so. By the way, they don't use the metric system in Liberia either. How about our Liberian readers?Ortolan88
- What do they use in Liberia? On an international note, things like feet and inches are difficult to use because they vary in length from place to place. A French foot is about 17 British inches, so in worrying about everyone giving a length in just feet would be wrong. I don't know how common such units are, but then, that's one of the reasons most people went metric in the first place.
Liberia uses feet, inches and pounds.
I think this and other articles would be better if they had both metric and inch-foot-pound measurements for the convenience of the American reader.
The likelihood that even French people would think of the archaic French foot is slim, it seems to me. The likelihood that American readers would appreciate seeing inches, feet and pounds is quite high in contrast. I expect the American readership of wikipedia may be as high as 50 percent.
It's not like I was asking for measurements in poods and versts. Ortolan88
- Feet and inches are now standardised worldwide (an inch is exactly 2.54 centimetres by definition). Gallons aren't (though the Imperial gallon has pretty much dropped out of usage - the US one is the only non-historical one) Yes, American readers deserve entries in cubits and furlongs or whatever their ridiculous measurement system uses ;), but equally American writers should translate their measurements into SI units. Getting "primary unit" consistency on Wikipedia is unlikely, but as long as they are consistent within an article that's OK. The exception is of course physics-related articles, where if you use American units as the primary unit the physicists will just roll about on the floor laughing :)
- So, in summary, yes, if an article has just one set of measurements it's a bug, but I think the easiest thing to do is just fix it. --Robert Merkel
Hey, I think we ought to use the metric system, play nothing but soccer, and have more sophisticated attitudes about adultery, but we are so provincial. And the lack of topless beaches has made us the laughingstock of the world.Ortolan88
- It's football ;) Seriously, sorry about the tail-twisting, but all in all do you think the above is a reasonable policy (in summary use one set of units consistently within an article, but provide translations, if a field of endeavour has a bias towards one set of units (science uses metric, drag racing uses imperial) stick with that set as the primary units)? --Robert Merkel
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- Hey! I like poods and versts! More poods and versts please.
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- Sorry: it's just that having both metric & imperial adds nothing to an article — any half-educated person can understand either one and do a rough mental conversion of the "5 feet = a bit less than 2 metres" variety. But seeing it in poods and versts would tell me something new I didn't know before — i.e., how long a pood is. Or possibly how heavy. (We don't seem to have an article on them.) Tannin 16:19, 25 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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- Actually, there is a Pood page, just not a "Poods" one. --BlackTerror 05:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
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"Farmers sometimes consider them pests, because they will eat almost any crop plant. ... They do not eat most crop plants, but they will eat brassicas (cabbage, and baby chard and bok choi) if very hungry soybean leaves" -- Can someone resolve this contradiction? --Cwage 15:29, 29 October 2005 (UTC)
/* Trivia */ They will eat almost any broadleaf plant, however, the brassicas are their absolute favorite. I do not even think of raising chicks in my cabbage garden, but, they are very useful in keeping a pumpkin or melon patch melon free--without eating the plants.
[edit] Darwin's Rhea also in Chilean Patagonia
The diagrams don't show it, but the Darwin's Rhea is quite common in the Chilean part of Patagonia, as well as the Argentinian side. In fact, based on my observations the last two weeks, it is more common and less skittish in Chile than Argentina, possibly because of stronger protections against hunting.
[edit] Picture of chicks
This picture was linked to the ostrich before, but these are actually rhea chicks
. --HSuepfle. Maybe you want to like it here.
[edit] Hybrid
Can any species of rhea be hybridized with any other Ratite?
This has not happened yet. I suspect that the species are too far removed to allow this. Although it is possible the ostrich and rhea, as the most similar of the ratites, MIGHT, and I do mean MIGHT, have the capacity to be genetically compatible, their physical differences, just like a crossbreeding of a Chihuahua and a Great Dane, make this highly unlikely. Artificial insemination would resolve the issue. To date, this has not been done. Donna. --4.254.72.129 00:58, 27 July 2006 (UTC)
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- Technically the Emu & Cassowary are the most similar Ratites, But I see your point.
[edit] claws on their toes only or also in their wings?
As birds descend from/are related to theropod dinosaurs, some birds still have or had claws on their wings, such as Archaeopteryx, Turaco and the Hoatzin (but more, I guess that Alvarezsaurus nowadays is regarded as a bird, and some Phorusrhacos-like bird). I think that Thea is also one of these, as it was mentionend in an earlier version of this text (now found on some delayed "mirror" site[1]) and in this brief mention on Dinosaur Mailing List[2]. So, as Jerry Seinfeld would say, what's the deal with Rheas wing claws? --Extremophile 00:37, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
- IONO, but all those clawed birds apparently have claws as a re-emergent trait (just like teeth are apparently not "buried" that deeply in birds) these things seem to pop up every now and then. So it may be possible in the rhea too. But I am not a ratite speciealist. (The alvarezsaurids are not generally considered bird ATM, but that all boils down to some intricacies of cladistics and might change though I'd rather say not and rather: remarkable case of parallel evolution. Basically, what makes them bird-like has been recognized to not be unique to birds in the meantime). Dysmorodrepanis 13:59, 17 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Head detail image
Why is the image of the "Head of a Rhea (detail)" entitled "Caput_dromaius_novaehollandiae.JPG"? It does appear to be a Rhea, but 'Dromaius novaehollandiae' is the Emu. Lusanaherandraton 08:07, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
