Abstract Ostriches (Struthionidae) are iconic Old-World giant flightless birds. The two living African species represent only a small part of ancient struthionid diversity, which comprises a number of fossil taxa, including the largest known birds of Northern Hemisphere – Pleistocene giants Pachystruthio. In comparison with most other birds, ostriches have an extensive fossil record, mostly represented by eggshell fossils, which are rather common in many Neogene to Quaternary localities of Africa and Eurasia. The global Old-World diversity of the fossil ostrich eggshell is here for the first time analyzed and put together with bone fossil record as well as current palaeoenvironmental and stratigraphic/biochronological data. The available fossil record indicates a complicated geographical pattern of ostrich evolutionary history during the Miocene, Pliocene and Pleistocene of Africa and Eurasia, with a number of evolutionary transformations and proposed dispersal events (both out-of-Africa and out-of-Eurasia). The evolution of ostriches is further put into a context of the overall environmental and faunal evolution, and paleontology-based hypotheses of the origin of modern taxa are developed.

中文翻译：

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鸵鸟（Aves：Struthionidae）的晚新生代历史，如化石蛋壳和骨骼遗骸所揭示

摘要 鸵鸟（鸵鸟科）是标志性的旧世界巨型不会飞的鸟类。这两个现存的非洲物种仅代表古代 struthionid 多样性的一小部分，其中包括许多化石分类群，包括北半球已知最大的鸟类 - 更新世巨人 Pachystruthio。与大多数其他鸟类相比，鸵鸟拥有广泛的化石记录，主要以蛋壳化石为代表，在非洲和欧亚大陆的许多新近纪至第四纪地区相当普遍。化石鸵鸟蛋壳的全球旧世界多样性在这里首次被分析并与骨骼化石记录以及当前的古环境和地层/生物年代学数据结合在一起。现有的化石记录表明了中新世鸵鸟进化史的复杂地理模式，非洲和欧亚大陆的上新世和更新世，有许多进化转变和提议的传播事件（非洲以外和欧亚大陆以外）。鸵鸟的进化被进一步置于整体环境和动物群进化的背景下，并提出了基于古生物学的现代分类群起源假说。