I went to the Emu farm a few minutes down my road and purchased this large Blue-Green Emu Egg as a souvenir. Its enormous! And fascinating! .. so I thought Id share my observations with you. :) Each egg is equivalent to a dozen standard chicken eggs!! So thats one proud omelet right there! The colour is natural too and serves to camouflage the egg while exposed on the Australian scrublands and savannah. The egg shell is around 2-3mm in density and comprises of concentrically deposited layers, all of which are opaque until the final coloured coats. It is very durable and difficult to access. The eggs are incubated by the male only, who waits for up to 60 days without food or even water until their hatching! Each egg is generally over 15cm in length and often laid in clutches of up to 15 individual eggs! In this time, the female continues to seek alternative mates across her territory, which is in stark contrast to many other species of life. When the young hatch they are around the size of these adorable babies shown in the next image.. thats pretty damn huge! Within a year they are almost as big as this guy in the image after that!. While incubating the clutch, the male survives by drawing upon a rich fat and oil reserve which surrounds the peritoneum and gut. This is harvested for commercial use for various products and so Emu oil, feathers, and even meat has become a marketable commodity. Nevertheless, I find these beautiful archaic legacies to be nothing short of a marvel. Each having a distinct personality and notable intelligence. I hope they stick around on this planet for just as long to come. These living feathered dinosaurs.... Isnt life just amazing :) By Ken Killeen of Terran Sky (Privileged are we to be the Observers)
Posted on: Thu, 04 Sep 2014 11:25:32 +0000
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