Rhea americana
(Linnaeus, 1758) · speciesAt a glance
Sources13 archives
Databases and archives Rhea americana's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation17 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility41 592 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI6 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics16 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
IOC World Bird ListIOCbird checklist↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The greater rhea (Rhea americana) is a species of flightless bird native to eastern South America. Other names for the greater rhea include the grey, common, or American rhea; ema (Portuguese); or ñandú (Guaraní and Spanish). One of two species in the genus Rhea, in the family Rheidae, the greater rhea is native to Brazil, Bolivia, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. It inhabits a variety of open areas, such as grasslands, savanna or grassy wetlands. Weighing 20 -, the greater rhea is the largest bird in South America and the largest native, extant bird anywhere in the Americas. In the wild, the greater rhea has a life expectancy of 10.5 years. It is also notable for its reproductive habits, and for the fact that a population has established itself in Northern Germany in recent years. The species is listed as Near Threatened by the IUCN.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology13
Life cycle & reproduction10
Diet & foraging9
Habitat & environment4
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Rhea americana has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
Besides the big genome in the nucleus, cells carry a small, circular loop of DNA inside the cell's energy factories — the mitochondria. It is inherited almost only from the mother and is a leftover from ancient bacteria that moved into the cell. The mitochondrial markers above (ND*, COX, CYTB…) are read from exactly this loop. Outer ring = one strand, inner ring = the other.
The complete instruction manual Rhea americana carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 802×GoaT · Bird Chromosome Database
2n 421×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 431×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 441×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 451×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 461×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 471×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 481×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 491×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 501×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 511×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 521×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 531×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 541×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 551×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 561×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 571×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 581×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 591×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 601×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 611×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 621×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 631×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 641×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 651×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 661×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 671×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
2n 681×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Rhea americana. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil. Where the DNA reaches further back than the oldest fossil, the gap is hatched: the ghost lineage. It means the lineage was already out there, but has left us nothing we have dug up yet.
How it livedPBDB
Record type41 597 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions19 of 32 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Chicago, US | 18 |
| Denver, US | 14 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 12 |
| Washington, US | 9 |
| Museu Nacional/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeirolocation not on record | 7 |
| Cambridge, US | 7 |
| Universidad de Caldas (UCaldas)location not on record | 6 |
| University of Nebraska State Museumlocation not on record | 4 |
| Ohio State University - Bird Division, Columbus, OH (OSUM)location not on record | 4 |
| SNSDlocation not on record | 4 |
| Seattle, US | 4 |
| Buenos Aires, AR | 3 |
| Copenhagen, DK | 3 |
| Musée des Confluenceslocation not on record | 3 |
| Geneva, CH | 2 |
| Barcelona, ES | 2 |
| Honolulu, US | 2 |
| Berkeley, US | 2 |
| BG-NMNHSlocation not on record | 2 |
| Central Michigan University Museum of Cultural and Natural Historylocation not on record | 2 |
| Museo civico La Terra e l'Uomo di Crocetta del Montellolocation not on record | 1 |
| Saint John, CA | 1 |
| Natural History Museum Rotterdamlocation not on record | 1 |
| Albany, US | 1 |
| München, DE | 1 |
| US | 1 |
| Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology UB RASlocation not on record | 1 |
| Oulu, FI | 1 |
| RBINS-Scientific Heritagelocation not on record | 1 |
| Brussels, BE | 1 |
| New Haven, US | 1 |
| Mongolian Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Where the DNA of Rhea americana was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.