Stubbill

Stubbill
All the species of stubbills. Plate from A Field Guide to the Birds of Devonshire; plate #6
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Aves
Infraclass:	Palaeognathae
Family:	Brevirhynchiformes (Travis and Hellstern, 2300)
Family:	Brevirhynchidae (Travis and Hellstern, 2300)
Genus:	Brevirhynchus (Travis and Hellstern, 2300)

The stubbills are ratites (flightless birds with an unkeeled sternum) in the genus Brevirhynchus, native to parts of southern Europa and northern Aifric. There are three extant species, Crested, Giant and Green. The genus name means "short-billed", another name for the birds, and the collective name for stubills is a short.

Description

Stubbills are medium-sized birds with long legs with brown, white or greenish plumage. The males tend to be larger than the females. They range from 3 feet (0.9 m) to 6 feet (1.8 m) and weigh up to 100 lbs (45.3 kg). They have three toes on each foot, like that of the rheas.

Taxonomy

There are three species:

• Crested Stubbill, Brevirhynchus cristatus^{[made-up sp.]}
• Giant Stubbill, Brevirhynchus gigas^{[made-up sp.]}
• Green Stubbill, Brevirhynchus chloroptera^{[made-up sp.]}

The stubbills are more related to the rheas than to the ostriches.

Behaviour

The behaviour of these birds is unknown, but they are known to run up to 40 mph (64.3 kph) when running.

Projects
This article is part of Project Bird Genera, a All Birds project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each genus, including made-up genera. This article is part of Project Bird Families, a All Birds project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each bird family, including made-up families. 200x200px This article is part of Project Bird Orders, a All Birds project that aims to write comprehensive articles on each bird order, including made-up orders. This article is part of Project Bird Taxonomy, a All Birds project that aims to write comprehensive articles on every order, family and other taxonomic rank related to birds.