Flightless Birds, diverse group of birds whose ancestors have given up the power of flight, enabling the exploitation of specific terrestrial and aquatic niches within the environment.
A common characteristic of flightless birds is the incubation of eggs by the male, the large size of the eggs, and often their number.
It is thought that flightless birds evolved from flying ancestors, and the closest-living relative to the ratites is the tinamou, a mainly ground-dwelling bird.
The best-known flightless birds are the ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea and penguins.
It is believed by some that most flightless birds evolved in the absence of predators, on islands, and lost the power of flight because they had few enemies--although this likely not the case for the ratites; the ostrich, emu and cassowary, as all have claws on their feet/birds to use as a weapon against predators.
The largest (both heaviest and tallest) flightless bird, which is also the largest living bird, is the Ostrich (2.7 m, 156 kg)[3] (although the largest moas where up to 13 feet tall and could have weighed around 400kg).
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