Bustards, including floricans and korhaans, are large, terrestrial birds living mainly in dry grassland areas and in steppe regions.

[1] Bustards are omnivorous and opportunistic, eating leaves, buds, seeds, fruit, small vertebrates, and invertebrates.

[6][7] The word tarda comes from tardus in Latin meaning "slow" and "deliberate",[8] which is apt to describe the typical walking style of the species.

Thomas C. Jerdon writes in The Birds of India (1862) I have not been able to trace the origin of the Anglo-Indian word Florikin, but was once informed that the Little Bustard in Europe was sometimes called Flanderkin.

[10][11][12] Otididae and before that Otidae come from the genus Otis given to the great bustard by the Swedish naturalist Carl Linnaeus in the tenth edition of his Systema Naturae in 1758,[13] it comes from the Greek word ὠτίς ōtis.

The smallest species is the little brown bustard (Eupodotis humilis), which is around 40 cm (16 in) long and weighs around 600 g (1.3 lb) on average.

[19] Genetic dating indicates that bustards evolved c. 30 million years ago in either southern or eastern Africa from where they dispersed into Eurasia and Australia.

They had become rare by 1819 when a large male, surprised by a dog on Newmarket Heath, sold in Leadenhall Market for five guineas.

[22] The last bustard in Britain died in approximately 1832, but the bird is being reintroduced through batches of chicks imported from Russia.