Flightless bird Flightless bird Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species including the well known ratites (ostrich, emu, cassowary, rhea and kiwi) and penguins. The smallest flightless bird is the Inaccessible Island rail (length 12.5 cm, weight 34.7 g). The largest (both heaviest and tallest) flightless bird, which is also the largest living bird, is the ostrich (2.7 m, 156 kg). Ostriches are farmed for their decorative feathers, meat and their skins, which are used to make leather. Many domesticated birds, such as the domestic chicken and domestic duck, have lost
The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs "To kill the Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" is an idiom used of an unprofitable action motivated by greed. It refers to one of Aesop's Fables, numbered 87 in the Perry Index, a story that also has a number of Eastern analogues. Many other stories contain geese that lay golden eggs though certain versions change them for hens that lay golden eggs. Avianus and Caxton tell different stories of a goose that lays a golden egg, where other versions have a hen, as in Townsend: "A cottager and his wife had a