How Long Do Rheas Live

How Long Do Rheas Live

Rheas are large flightless birds, native to South America, that look a lot like ostriches but are not related. In order to get to the bottom of how long rheas live, I started by searching the web for "rhea lifespan."

The first result looked promising: an article entitled "Rhea: Lifespan" on animals.mom.me, which describes itself as "a family-friendly online publication focused on animals and pets." The article answered my question in one sentence: "In the wild, rheas live for about 10 years."

That seemed plausible enough, but now I was curious about what other sources said about rhea lifespans. So I went back to Google and clicked through a few more results.

One led to a page from an organization called Rheas R Us that said "10-15 years" (though it acknowledged in a footnote that this was only a guess). Another led to an article entitled "Facts About Rheas," which said that "the average life span of these birds is 10 years," citing as its source the website of a zoo called Snake World. A third led back to animals.mom.me's article on rheas, which now listed their

The rhea is a flightless bird from South America, similar to the ostrich. The average lifespan of both males and females in the wild is 10.5 years. Rheas are shy and hard to find in their natural habitat, so not enough information has been gathered on their life expectancy to estimate how long they live in captivity.

The rhea is found in high grasslands and open fields. They need a lot of land to roam freely and nest, so zoos usually will only keep one or two males, who can be territorial and aggressive towards each other.