Emu

Emus are large flightless birds similar to small ostrichs. Emus are native to Australia where they eat seeds, insects, and shrubs.

Behaviour

Emus are built like ostriches, and are similarly powerful and stubborn animals. They are well known to Aborigines, who would often steal their gigantic eggs for meals that were much prized, not least for the danger that such pilferage entailed. They were also well-known to the white settlers, for their habit of damaging fences that happened to be in their way. Frequently they would take over the farm household’s outhouse - “the dunny” in Australian vernacular - a small shed sheltering a toilet built a little way from the house. When eviction was attempted, the subsequent tussle would often conclude with the destruction of the dunny, sometimes as an act of spite by the emu itself. Many experts now hold that these are just bush myths, and the destruction was not intentional, but this hardly explains the many recorded instances in which the exiled emu would return late at night and methodically flatten the structure with a series of well-aimed kicks, while a herd of fellow emus observed from a little distance, with obvious appreciation. Such events led to the coining of one of bush Australia ’s most well-known sayings, the jocular curse: “May an emu kick your dunny down!”

According to the origins theory model used by creation scientists, emus, like all flightless non aquatic birds, originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of the two emus that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood. Also according to creation science theories, after the Flood, emus bred from the Ark passengers then migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land -- as it is thought that Australia was still for a time after the Flood connected to the Middle East before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart -- or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters. The theory that God simply generated emus into existence there is considered by most creation researchers to be contra-Biblical.