Do Ostriches have External Ears?

I like birds, big, small and in-between. They are fun to watch and challenging to take pictures of, at least good pictures. A friend said  “why do you photograph birds?”. My reply…because they are there. 🙂

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Anyway we were at the Franklin Park Zoo and the female ostrich was right up close to the fence. She seemed to be trying to catch little bugs that were landing on the wire fencing so we got a good up close look at her and I saw something but I’m not sure what.

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It looks like she has ears! Other birds have smooth heads. I’ve never noticed ears before. I tried looking it up online and got lots of scientific papers about they way birds hear but nothing about a real, external ear flap.

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I’ve been working days this week  so my time to research this has been limited so I’ll ask you…Do ostriches have ears, real external ear flaps.

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If not, what are those things on the side of her head?

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