Kiwi bird

Kiwi facts & characteristics

Kiwi have many weird and wonderful features thanks to New Zealand's ancient isolation and lack of mammals. It is thought they evolved to occupy a habitat and lifestyle that elsewhere in the world would be filled by a mammal, and their one-off evolutionary design holds all sorts of biological records.

Quick Kiwi Facts

An average of 27 kiwi are killed by predators EVERY WEEK. That’s a population decline of around 1,400 kiwi every year (or 2%). At this rate, kiwi may disappear from the mainland in our lifetime. Just one hundred years ago, kiwi numbered in the millions.

A single roaming dog can wipe out an entire kiwi population in a matter of days

Approximately 20% of the kiwi population is under management.

In areas under where predators are controlled, 50-60% of chicks survive. When areas are not under management 95% of kiwi die before reaching breeding age.

Only 20% survival rate of kiwi chicks is needed for the population to increase.

Proof of success – on the Coromandel, in the predator controlled area, the kiwi population is doubling every decade.

?What’s so unusual

Kiwi are flightless – their Latin species name is Apteryx, which means wingless. They belong to an ancient group of birds that can’t fly – the ratites. Because they can’t fly, how they arrived in New Zealand is not completely clear.

Kiwi habits and physical characteristics are so like a mammal the bird is sometimes referred to as an honorary mammal. It has feathers like hair, nostrils at the end of its beak and an enormous egg.

Most kiwi are nocturnal birds, like many of New Zealand’s native animals. Their calls pierce the forest air at dusk and dawn.

Kiwi are omnivores. Discover what foods they find with their unusual beak.

.Even though kiwi are unusual enough, tall stories abound about the bird.