🇳🇿New Zealand·National Bird
🥝Kiwi
A flightless bird so iconic, the people are named after it.
New Zealanders have called themselves 'Kiwis' for over a century. The bird, found only in New Zealand, is so culturally important that it appears on the country's coins, military insignia, and dollar — even though it's nocturnal and most New Zealanders have never seen one in the wild.
Why this animal?
Kiwis are endemic to New Zealand and have no close relatives anywhere else. As flightless ground-dwellers with no native mammal predators, they evolved in isolation for millions of years — they're unique to the islands in a way few national animals are.
Things to know
- ·Kiwis lay the largest egg relative to body size of any bird — up to 20% of the mother's weight.
- ·They have nostrils at the tip of their long beak, unique among birds, and hunt by smell.
- ·Kiwis have hair-like feathers, no tail, and bone marrow — they're more like mammals than other birds in many ways.
- ·All five kiwi species are threatened by introduced predators like stoats and dogs.
- ·The Kiwi fruit was renamed after the bird in the 1950s by New Zealand exporters — it was originally called the Chinese gooseberry.