Animal Facts: Emu belong to a group of flightless birds called ratites, which is the oldest form of birds and includes Cassowaries, Ostriches and Rheas. Emus are unusual birds. They don’t tweet: they grunt. They don’t fly: they walk and run as fast as 50kph! Emus are the second largest birds in the world, after Ostriches, standing up to 190 cm tall and weighing 55 kg. They have shaggy grey-brown to black plumage. The bare skin around their face and neck is a striking blue-black colour. Emu chicks are grey with black or brown stripes, helping them camouflage from predators. Their vestigial ‘winglets’, hidden under shaggy plumage, are only 20cm long. The Hansa Story Artisans hand sew the animals “inside out”, an old-world tradition that results in the minimisation of seams, and their bodies are carefully “sculpted” to create “musculature” and “features” like movement in a walking or sitting position that are unique to each creature. On average, there are 42 separate pieces required to make each animal that a team of truly creative artists must combine to create the distinctly realistic features that characterise HANSA animals. (Some animals have as many as 240 different parts!) Each animal is hand-sewn individually to give it a unique “personality”. There are more than 860 different fabrics and man-made furs from which the “coat” and “hides” are made, along with over 6000 sets of different eyes, whiskers, claws, noses, and related accessories allocated for creating these wonderful plush animals. Stuffing emphasises careful attention to the placement of the highest quality man-made materials. When you hold these wonderfully “life-like” animals, you will see and feel HANSA’s emphasis on quality, which results from careful attention to design, custom fabric selection, cutting, sewing, stuffing, eye placement, feature creation, framing, air brushing and finishing. Since each animal is hand sewn, there will be slight variations in appearance.