About
鹋 is the simplified form of the traditional character 鶓, denoting a large flightless bird, specifically the emu. It is a phono-semantic compound, combining the phonetic component 苗, meaning "seedling", with the semantic radical 鸟, indicating its classification as a bird. The traditional form used the more complex radical 鳥, which was simplified to 鸟, while the phonetic 苗 remained unchanged. As the emu is native to Australia and was unknown in ancient China, this character was created as a modern zoological term. Together with 鸸, it forms the phonetic transcription "鸸鹋", which approximates the animal's foreign pronunciation.