Lesser Rhea

     The Lesser Rhea, or the Darwin’s Rhea, is a flightless bird lives in the Altiplano and Patagonia regions of South America. It’s the smaller one of the two extant species of Rheas. The Lesser Rhea has spotted dun, brown, grey and white feathers, and long legs and neck. It has also relatively large wings which enable it to run particularly well (it can reach speeds of 60 km/h). Lesser rheas stand up to 90 – 100 cm tall, and weighs around 15 – 25 kg.

     The Lesser Rhea is quite sociable out of the breeding season and lives in groups of 5 to 30 birds, of both sexes and a variety of ages. Male birds become aggressive once they are incubating eggs. Female Lesser rheas thus lay the latter greenish yellow eggs near the nest, rather than in it. Most of the eggs are then moved into the nest by the male, and chicks hatch after almost 6 weeks of incubation. Lesser rhea chicks are reared by their father alone, till they reach the point of independence.

     Lesser rheas face the danger of extinction due to the continuous hunting for their valuable feathers and meat, collecting the eggs, and destroying the nests and habitats of this rare bird. There are 3 subspecies for the Lesser rhea that are distributed across the bird’s natural living range.