North Island Brown Kiwi

The North Island brown kiwi (Apteryx mantelli) is a flightless, nocturnal bird of New Zealand that probes the forest floor for invertebrates with a long bill. It is listed as Vulnerable, with introduced predators the main threat.

🧬 Field Guide Specimen: Open North Island Brown Kiwi in the CRV Science Field Guide to log the specimen, see its place among the Reptilia lineages in the Cladogram Explorer, and test your recall in the Red List conservation game.

Unlike most birds, kiwi have nostrils at the tip of the bill and a good sense of smell. Their feathers are hair-like, they have tiny wings hidden in the plumage, and they lay a single egg that can be about a fifth of the female's body weight.

Genetic work in 2014 showed that the kiwi's closest relatives are the extinct elephant birds of Madagascar rather than the moa of New Zealand. That implies that flightlessness evolved several times among the ratites after their flying ancestors dispersed across the Southern Hemisphere.

Stoats kill most kiwi chicks in unmanaged forest, and dogs and vehicles kill adults. Predator control and breeding-for-release programs are raising survival rates.

• Dodo — another flightless island bird
• Common Ostrich — another ratite