Which is the world's only flightless parrot?

The kākāpō (from the Māori: 'kākāpō', lit. 'night parrot'), also called owl parrot, is a species of large, flightless, nocturnal, ground-dwelling parrot of the super-family "Strigopoidea", endemic to New Zealand. The 'kākāpō' is critically endangered; the total known adult population is 201 living individuals, all of which are named and tagged, confined to four small islands off the coast of New Zealand that have been cleared of predators. A combination of traits makes it unique among parrots: it is the world's only flightless parrot and the world's heaviest parrot.

The kākāpō cannot fly, having relatively short wings for its size and lacking the keel on the sternum (breastbone), where the flight muscles of other birds attach. It uses its wings for balance and to break its fall when leaping from trees. Unlike many other land birds, the kākāpō can accumulate large amounts of body fat.

More Info: en.wikipedia.org

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12 Comments

Pat Wells

Interesting information. They are protected and confined to only several islands in New Zealand, which have been cleared of predators. Their numbers are in the low 200's, but there is a major conservation effort to protect the bird--they are all tagged and monitored.

Chris Brown

Actually, many of our native birds in NZ are flightless and ground-dwelling. The reason for this is because, until the arrival of the Māori about a millennium ago,l New Zealand had no mammals, except for two subspecies of bat. The Māori, however, brought with them a Polynesian species of rat (kiore). which preyed on much of the native species. When the British explorer, James Cook arrived in 1760, the onboard ship population of rats escaped as they did when the first settlers arrived after about 1815. The other animals they brought with them: cats and dogs among them, began preying on the ground-dwelling birds and small reptiles such as a native gecko (Māori name: Mokopirirakau or forest gecko). I am pleased to see that the contributor to this question has added the macron over the vowels. Are you a New Zealander like me? It's a great question though.

Steve Tingle

When I was young and first getting interested in conservation I read about the kakapo at that time I think they only knew of one example, but over the years since I understand they have discovered more and having first removed all the imported predators (rats cats etc.who destroyed the eggs of the ground nesting bird) the government rounded up all the examples and transferred them to the safe islands. Have more recently seen films of a fascinating bird.

Player mele fataaikitama

I'm from new Zealand and folks who vist new Zealand never says anything bad about it that I know of.intersting to read folks comments.kiwi a famous bird here and native a favourite 😁

janellebiggs

Chris Brown, No,I am not a New Zealanders. But I do have about 3 relatives who are from there. I have always wanted to go there and visit them. New Zealand is such a beautiful country.

janellebiggs

Very interesting. I never knew such a bird existed . Always interesting to learn something new. That is why I love trivia games.

M.C.F

Beautiful bird I have never seen one before

Irene Townsend

Chris Brown, His profile says he's from India. Click his picture to find out about people

djs

Irma Rivera, Got it.

Irene Townsend

New Zealand have a lot of small islands around that are free of predators and people which are used for protection of our unique wild life we may not have things like Wild Big cats, snakes, bears etc, our wild life is much more unique in that it is birds, insects. The cats that kill the baby birds and eat the eggs are wild, feral cats, the worse kind. The worst one that I know of has somehow managed to come across from Australia, I believe, and that is one of their spider, as I've never actually seen it, only read a couple of stories about it, am not sure which one as they have plenty over there