How many different species of flightless birds are there?

There are five ratites, emu and cassowary of Australia, kiwi New Zealand,ostrich of Africa, and rhea South America. There used to be, in historic times the elephant bird of Madagascar 10 feet high 900 lbs.
There are 17 species of penguin, all from the southern hemisphere. The northern most is the Galapagos Penguin from, yep, the Galapagos islands almost on the equator.
Those are the groups that are all flightless. In other groups there are individual species that are flightless.
There is a flightless grebe, similar to loons in appearance, in South America.
There is the TINAMOU family of South America with 46 species,they are closely related to the ratites but look more like quail and some species have never been seen to fly.
In 1894 a light house was setup on tiny Stephens Island between the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The keepers cat kept bringing him funny little dead birds, he sent some to the museum in Wellington where they were discovered to be a species of flightless wren, the only flightless, and smallest, song bird known. Scientist went straight to the island but the cat had wiped them out. Maybe. There are reports from time to time that the tiny flightless wren has been spotted.
I am pretty sure there are a few other's, but can't remember them. Most of them live on isolated islands or other inaccessible areas.
The great auk of the North Atlantic and the Do Do of the Indian ocean are extinct due to man and his pets and pests like rats. There may once have been many flightless species on islands that were wiped out before they were truly discovered. And there may be some we haven't found. I ain't gonna count domestic fowl, they are "flightless" mostly because they are big and fat compared to their wild cousins.

[05/15/05]-I didn't list the turkey because the wild turkey is a very fast and powerful flyer, ask any hunter. They roost high in trees at night. I specifically excluded domestic birds.

Comments

Excellent answer, very informative, thanks very much! :-)
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by Daydreamer on May 11th, 2005
ur the shiznit
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by karma police on May 11th, 2005
Awesome!
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by AB-Joel on May 12th, 2005
You named all the exotic ones, and forgot the most common - the Turkey!
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by Ask_Cham on May 14th, 2005
Forget not the heaviest of the parrots, the kakapo of New Zealand - also the only nocturnal parrot. Weird bird. Flightless.
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by Joseph Peacock on November 21st, 2005
Turkey CAN FLY. They can fly up to 60mph (I think)
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by Eagle-Heron on October 3rd, 2006