What are the natural enemies of ostriches? A rundown of the animals that threaten the ostrich's survival

The ostrich's ancestors were also a species of flying bird, and its running ability is truly astonishing, with a sprint speed of over 70 km per hour. In the animal world it has few natural enemies, and its most important ones are the lion and the cheetah. Let's take a look at these natural enemies of the ostrich below!

Lion

The ostrich's biggest natural enemy in Africa is the lion, but lion prides rarely attack ostriches. Most of the time, lion prides would rather choose the more risky elephant and giraffe than hunt ostriches. The main reasons are that the ostrich runs very fast, has extraordinary stamina, and often lives in flocks.

Cheetah

The cheetah is a carnivore, and its prey is mainly small and medium-sized ungulates, including Thomson's gazelle, Grant's gazelle, impala, and young wildebeest. When food is scarce, it will also attack zebras, and the ostrich is also a frequent prey of the cheetah. The cheetah stealthily approaches to within 10 to 30 meters of its prey, then hunts it. When hunting, its speed can reach up to 120 km per hour, with only one foot touching the ground, but it can only run for 3 minutes at most; beyond that, its physiology forces the cheetah to slow down, otherwise it will die from overheating. The cheetah can usually catch its prey within 1 minute. If the cheetah fails in the hunt, it will have wasted its energy.

There was once a very interesting report: a cheetah mistakenly chased an ostrich and instead got “counterattacked”. This cheetah, which normally did not prey on ostriches, made a mistake this time. Its mistake was chasing an ostrich. The cheetah that made this big mistake was then “counterattacked” by the ostrich and had to flee with its tail between its legs.

Other natural enemies

Adult ostriches have few natural enemies, but there are many predators in the desert that like to steal and eat ostrich eggs, so nests without adult birds guarding them are easily visited by natural enemies. For example, the Egyptian vulture will throw stones at the eggs to break the eggshell as thick as 2 mm. Even eggs guarded by adult birds have natural enemies such as hyenas and jackals, so during the three-week laying period and the roughly six-week incubation period, fewer than 10% of the eggs will hatch.