Huia
Encyclopedia
The Huia was the largest species of New Zealand wattlebird
and was endemic to the North Island
of New Zealand. Its extinction in the early 20th century had two primary causes. The first was rampant overhunting
to procure Huia skins for mounted specimens
, which were in worldwide demand by museums and wealthy private collectors. Huia were also hunted to obtain their long, striking tail feathers for locally fashionable hat decorations. The second major cause of extinction was the widespread deforestation
of the lowlands of the North Island by European settlers to create pasture for agriculture. Most of these forests were ancient, ecologically complex primary forests, and Huia were not able to survive in regenerating secondary forest
s. The last confirmed sighting of a Huia was on 28 December 1907 in the Tararua Ranges. Further credible sightings near Wellington
were reported until 1922,reported sightings were in Te Urewera National Park
in the early 1960s.
The Huia was remarkable for having the most pronounced sexual dimorphism
in bill shape of any species of bird in the world. The female's beak was long, thin and arched downward, while the male's was short and stout, like that of a crow
. The sexes were otherwise similar, with orange wattles and predominantly black plumage with a green sheen. The birds lived in forests at both montane
and lowland altitudes – they are thought to have moved seasonally, living at higher altitude in summer and descending to lower altitudes in winter. Huia were omnivorous and ate insects, grubs and spiders, as well as the fruits of a small number of native plants. Males and females used their beaks to feed in different ways: the male used his bill to chisel away at rotting wood, while the female's longer, more flexible bill was able to probe deeper areas. Even though the Huia is frequently mentioned in biology and ornithology
textbooks because of this striking dimorphism, not much is known about its biology; it was little studied before it was driven to extinction. The Huia is one of New Zealand's best-known extinct birds because of this bill shape and its sheer beauty and special place in Māori culture
and oral tradition
. The bird was regarded by Māori as tapu (sacred), and the wearing of its skin or feathers was reserved for people of high status.
ἕτερος "different" and ἄλοχος "wife". It refers to the striking difference in bill shape between male and female. The specific name, acutirostris, derives from Latin
acutus, meaning "sharp pointed", and rostrum, meaning "beak", and refers to the beak of the female.
John Gould
described the Huia in 1836 as two species: Neomorpha acutirostris based on a female specimen, and N. crassirostris based on a male specimen—the epithet crassirostris derives from the Latin crassus, meaning "thick" or "heavy", and refers to the male's short bill. In 1840, George Robert Gray
proposed the name N. gouldii, arguing that neither of Gould's names was applicable to the species. In 1850, Jean Cabanis
replaced the name Neomorpha, which had been previously used for a cuckoo
genus, with Heteralocha. In 1888 Sir Walter Buller wrote: "I have deemed it more in accordance with the accepted rules of zoological nomenclature to adopt the first of the two names applied to the species by Mr. Gould; and the name Neomorpha having been previously used in ornithology, it becomes necessary to adopt that of Heteralocha, proposed by Dr. Cabanis for this form."
The Huia appears to be a remnant of an early expansion of passerines in New Zealand, and is the largest of the three members of the family Callaeidae
, the New Zealand wattlebirds; the others are the Saddleback and the Kōkako
. The only close relative to the family is the Stitchbird
; their taxonomic relationships to other birds remain to be determined. A molecular study of the nuclear RAG-1 and c-mos genes of the three species within the family proved inconclusive, the data providing most support for either a basally diverging Kokako or Huia.
s at the gape
. In both sexes, the eyes were brown; the beak was ivory white, greyish at the base; the legs and feet were long and bluish grey while the claws were light brown. Huia had twelve long glossy black tail feathers, each tipped for 2.5–3 cm (1–1.2 in) with a broad band of white. Immature Huia had small pale wattles, duller plumage flecked with brown, and a reddish-buff tinge to the white tips of the tail feathers. The beak of the young female was only slightly curved. Māori referred to certain Huia as huia-ariki, "chiefly Huia". The huia-ariki had brownish plumage streaked with grey, and the feathers on the neck and head were darker. This variant may have been a partial albino
, or perhaps such birds were simply of great age. Several true albino Huia were recorded.
Although sexual dimorphism in bill shape is found in other birds, such as the riflebirds
, sicklebills
and other wood-excavating birds including some species of woodpecker
, it was most pronounced in the Huia. The beak of the male was short at approximately 60 mm (2.3 in) and slightly arched downwards and robust, very similar to that of the closely related Saddleback, while the female's beak was finer, longer at around 104 mm (4 in), and decurved (curved downward) like that of a hummingbird
or honeyeater
. The difference was not only in the bone; the rhamphotheca grew way past the end of the bony maxilla and mandible to produce a pliable implement able to deeply penetrate holes made by wood-boring beetle larvae. The skulls and mandibles of the Huia and Saddleback are very similar, the latter essentially miniatures of the former.
There are two possible explanations for the evolution of this sexual difference in bill shape. The most widely supported is that it allowed birds of different sexes to utilise different food sources. This divergence may have arisen because of a lack of competitors in these foraging niches in the North Island forest ecosystems. The other idea is that the ivory-coloured bill, which contrasted sharply with the bird's black plumage, may have been used to attract a mate. In animals that use sexually dimorphic physical traits to attract a mate, the dimorphic feature is often brightly coloured or contrasts with the rest of the body, as with the Huia. It has been suggested that as the female was the main provider of food for the chicks by regurgitation, this sex evolved the longer bill to obtain the protein-rich invertebrate diet required for the chicks.
Another, less obvious aspect of the Huia's sexual dimorphism was the minor size difference between the sexes. Males were 45 cm (18 in) long, while females were larger at 48 cm (19 in). Additionally, the tail of the male was about 20 cm (7.8 in) in length and the wingspan was between 21 and 22 cm (8.2–8.6 in), while the female's tail was 19.5 to 20 cm (7.6–7.8 in) and the female's wingspan was 20 to 20.5 cm (7.8–8 in).
deposits and midden
remains suggest that the Huia was once widespread in both lowland and montane native forest throughout the North Island
, extending from the northernmost tip at Cape Reinga
to Wellington
and the Aorangi Range
in the far south. Only a few Huia are known from the extensive pitfall deposits in the karst
of the Waitomo caves area
and they are also rare or absent in fossil deposits in the central North Island and Hawke's Bay
; it seems to have preferred habitats that are not well sampled by the deposits known at present. Its range appears to have contracted following Māori settlement in the middle 12th century. By the time of European settlement in the 1840s, the bird was found only in the forests of the southern North Island, south of a line from the Raukumara Range
in the east, across the Kaimanawa Range
, to the Turakina River
in the Rangitikei
in the west. In the south, its range extended to the Wairarapa
and the Rimutaka Range
east of Wellington. Reports collected by Walter Buller
and a single waiata (Māori song) suggest that the Huia was once also found in the Marlborough and Nelson districts of the South Island
; however, it has never been identified in the rich fossil deposits south of Cook Strait, and there is no other evidence of the species' presence.
The Huia inhabited both of the two principal forest types in New Zealand. They were primarily found in broadleaf-podocarp forests where there was a dense understorey, but occasionally also in Southern Beech (Nothofagus
) forest. The species was observed in native vegetation including Mataī (Prumnopitys taxifolia
), Rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum
), Kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides
), Northern Rātā (Metrosideros robusta
), Maire (Nestegis
), Hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus
), Totara (Podocarpus totara
), Rewarewa (Knightia excelsa), Mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus
), and Taraire (Beilschmiedia tarairi), and at sea level in Karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus) trees at Cape Turakirae
. It was never seen in burnt forest or land cleared for farming.
in the New Zealand avifauna. Woodpeckers do not occur east of Wallace's line
; their ecological niche
is filled by other groups of birds that feed on wood-boring beetle larvae, albeit in rotting wood. The woodpecker-like role was taken on by two species in two different families in the New Zealand mixed-podocarp and Nothofagus forests; one was the Huia and the other was the Kaka.
The Huia foraged mainly on decaying wood. Although it was considered a specialist predator of the larva
e of the nocturnal Huhu beetle (Prionoplus reticularis), it also ate other insects including Weta
, insect larvae, spiders and fruit.
Insects and spiders were taken from decaying wood, from under bark, mosses and lichens, and from the ground. Huia foraged either alone, in pairs, or in small flocks of up to five, which were probably family groups. The sexual dimorphism of the bill structure gave rise to feeding strategies that differed radically between the sexes. The male used its adze
-like bill to chisel and rip into the outer layers of decaying wood, while the female probed areas inaccessible to the male, such as the burrows of insect larvae in living wood. The male had well-developed cranial musculature allowing rotten wood to be chiselled and pried apart by "gaping" motions. There are corresponding differences in the structure and musculature of the head and neck between males and females. Huia had very well developed depressor jaw muscles, and an occipital crest
that provided extra surface for muscle attachment, allowing the jaw to be opened with considerable force. Once the bird had secured a meal, it flew to a perch with the insect in its feet. The Huia stripped its meal of any hard parts, then tossed the remainder up, caught, and swallowed it.
A pair did not cooperate in feeding, at least not in a strict sense. All such reports are based on misunderstanding of an account by ornithologist Walter Buller
of a pair kept in captivity obtaining wood-boring beetle larvae. According to this misunderstanding, which has become part of ecological folklore, the male would tear at the wood and open larval tunnels, thus allowing the female to probe deeply into the tunnels with her long, pliant bill. Rather, the divergent bills represent an extreme example of niche differentiation
, reducing intraspecific competition
between the sexes. This allowed the species to exploit a wide range of food sources in different microhabitats.
The New Zealand forest relies heavily on frugivorous birds for seed dispersal: about 70% of the woody plants have fruits that are probably dispersed by birds, which included the Huia. The range of fruits eaten by the Huia is difficult to establish: Hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus
), Pigeonwood (Hedycarya arborea) and various species of Coprosma
are recorded by Buller, and they were also recorded as eating the fruits of Kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides
). The extinction of the Huia and other frugivorous New Zealand bird species including the moa
and Piopio
, and the diminishing range of many others, including the kiwi
, Weka
, and Kōkako
, has left few effective seed dispersers in the New Zealand forest. For plants with fruit greater than 1 cm in diameter, Kereru
are the sole remaining dispersers in the ecosystem, and they are rare or extinct in some areas. This depletion of avifauna in the forest ecosystem may be having major impacts on processes such as forest regeneration and seed dispersal.
, and captive birds were known to "wake the household". Like the Whitehead
, Huia behaved unusually before the onset of wet weather, being "happy and in full song". The bird's name is onomatopoeic: it was named by Māori for its loud distress call, a smooth, unslurred whistle rendered as uia, uia, uia or where are you?. This call was said to be given when the bird was excited or hungry. Chicks had a "plaintive cry, pleasant to the ear", would feebly answer imitations by people, and were very noisy when kept in tents.
louse
, Rallicola extinctus
, was only known to live on the Huia, and apparently became extinct with its host
. In 2008, a new species of feather mite, Coraciacarus muellermotzfeldi, was described from dried corpses found in the feathers of a Huia skin held by a European museum. While the genus Coraciacarus has a wide range of hosts globally, the presence of a representative of the genus on a passerine
bird was an "enigmatic phenomenon". The discoverers suggested the mite could have been horizontally transferred from one of the two native, migratory species of cuckoo
(Cuculiformes).
A quiet, social bird, the Huia was monogamous, and pairs probably paired for life. The bird was usually found in breeding pairs, although sometimes groups of four or more were encountered. Walter Buller
records that a tame pair would always keep close to each other, constantly uttering a "low affectionate twitter", even when in captivity. There are records of this same pair and a further, wild pair "hopping from branch to branch and fanning their tails, then meeting to caress each other with their bills" and uttering these noises. The male is said to have fed the female in courtship. It is thought that these behaviours may have been a sexual display. The claim that the male fed the female while she was incubating and on the nest "lacks evidence". When the male of this captive pair was accidentally killed, the female "manifesting the utmost distress pined for her mate and died 10 days afterwards". A Māori man in the 19th century recalled: "I was always told by my old people that a pair of Huia lived on most affectionate terms ... If the male died first, the female died soon after of grief". The Huia had no fear of people; females allowed themselves to be handled on the nest, and birds could easily be captured by hand.
Little is known about the Huia's reproduction, as only two eggs and four nests were ever described. The only known Huia egg to still exist is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
. The breeding season for mating, building nests, laying eggs and raising young is thought to have been late spring (October–November). It is thought they nested solitarily; pairs are said to have been territorial
and the birds would remain on their territories for life. Huia appear to have raised just one brood per season; the number of eggs in a clutch is variously described as being 3–5,4,2–4 and 1–4. These eggs were greyish with purple and brown speckles, and measured 45 by 30 mm (1.8 by 1.5 in). Incubation
was mostly by the female, though there is evidence that the male also had a small role, as rubbed-bare brooding patches that were smaller than those of females were discovered on some males in November. The incubation period is unknown. Eggshells were apparently removed from the nest by adults. The brood size was usually one or two, though there was the odd record of up to three chicks in a single nest. Nests were constructed in varying places: in dead trees, the crooks of large branches, tree hollows, on branches, or "on or near the ground", and some nests were covered with hanging vegetation or vines. The nest itself was a large saucer-shaped structure, up to 350 mm in diameter and 70 mm deep, with thick walls of dry grass, leaves and "withered stems of herbaceous plants". A central small, shallow cup of soft materials such as grass and fine twigs cushioned and insulated the eggs. After hatching, young remained in the family group and were fed by the adults for three months, by which time they appeared adult.
Although the Huia's range was restricted to the southern North Island, its tail feathers were valued highly and were exchanged among tribes for other valuable goods such as pounamu and shark teeth, or given as tokens of friendship and respect. Through this trade, the feathers reached the far north and the far south of New Zealand. They were stored in intricately carved boxes called waka huia
, which were hung from the ceilings of chiefs' houses. Huia feathers were worn at funerals and used to decorate the heads of the deceased. The marereko, described by Edward Robert Tregear
as an "ancient war-plume", consisted of twelve Huia feathers. The highly valued pōhoi was an ornament made from the skin of the Huia: the bird was skinned with the beak, skull and wattles attached and the legs and wings removed, carefully dried, and the resulting ornament worn from the neck or ears. Dried Huia heads were also worn as pendants called ngutu huia. A captured Huia would be kept in a small cage so that its tail feathers could be plucked as they grew to full size.
The bird was also kept by Māori as a pet, and like the Tui
, it could be trained to say a few words. There is also a record of a tame Huia kept by European settlers in a small village in the Forty-Mile Bush
in the 19th century.
New Zealand has released several postage stamps portraying the Huia, and the New Zealand sixpence circulated from 1933 to 1966 featured a female Huia on the reverse.
The degree to which the Huia was known and admired in New Zealand is reflected in the large number of suburban and geographical features which are named after the species. There are several roads and streets named after the Huia in the North Island, with several in Wellington (including Huia Road in Days Bay
– not far from where one of the last sightings of this species occurred in the early 1920s in the forests of East Harbour Regional Park
) and also in Auckland, where there is even a Huia suburb in Waitakere. A river
on the west coast of the South Island and the Huiarau Range
s in the central North Island are also named after the bird. The species was once found living in great abundance in the forests of these mountains: Huiarau means "a hundred Huia". Businesses include the public swimming pool in Lower Hutt
, a Marlborough winery, and Huia Publishers
, which specialises in Māori writing and perspectives. The name was first given to a child in the late 19th century, to the son of members of a lower North Island iwi
concerned about the bird's rapid decline, and although uncommon, it is still used today in New Zealand as a name for girls and more rarely for boys (e.g. Huia Edmonds
), of both European and Māori descent.
Tail feathers of the extinct Huia are very rare and they have become a collectors' item. In June 2010 a single Huia tail feather sold at auction in Auckland for NZ$8,000, much higher than the $500 the auctioneers had expected, making it the most expensive feather ever. The previous record price for a single feather was $US2,800 (NZ$4,000) achieved by a Bald Eagle
feather at auction in the United States.
(hunting ban) was enforced in spring and summer. It was not until European settlement that the Huia's numbers began to decline severely, due mainly to two well-documented factors: widespread deforestation and overhunting.
Like the extinctions of other New Zealand birds such as the Piopio
in the 19th century, the decline of the Huia was poorly studied. Massive deforestation occurred in the North Island at this time, particularly in the lowlands of southern Hawkes Bay, the Manawatu and the Wairarapa
, as land was cleared by European settlers for agriculture. The Huia was particularly vulnerable to this as it could only live in old-growth forest where there were abundant rotting trees filled with wood-boring insect larvae. It seems it could not survive in regenerating, secondary forest
s. Although the mountainous part of its former range was not deforested, the lowland forests of the valleys below were systematically destroyed. The destruction of this part of its habitat would have undoubtedly had a severe impact on Huia populations, but its removal would have been particularly dire if they did in fact descend to the lowlands as a winter refuge to escape snow at higher altitudes as some researchers including Oliver have surmised.
It appears that predation by invasive mammalian species including ship rat
s, cats, and mustelids was an additional factor in the decline in Huia numbers – introduction of these animals by New Zealand Acclimatisation Societies
peaked in the 1880s and coincided with a particularly sharp decline in Huia populations. Because it spent a lot of time on the ground, the Huia would have been particularly vulnerable to mammalian predators. Another hypothetical cause of extinction is exotic parasites and disease introduced from Asia with the Common Myna
.
Habitat destruction and the predations of introduced species were problems faced by all New Zealand birds, but in addition the Huia faced massive pressure from hunting. Due to its pronounced sexual dimorphism and its beauty, Huia were sought after as mounted specimens
by wealthy collectors in Europe and by museums all over the world. These individuals and institutions were willing to pay large sums of money for good specimens, and the overseas demand created a strong financial incentive for hunters in New Zealand. This hunting was initially by naturalists. Austrian taxidermist Andreas Reischek
took 212 pairs as specimens for the natural history museum in Vienna
over a period of 10 years, while New Zealand ornithologist Walter Buller
collected 18 on just one of several expeditions to the Rimutaka Range
s in 1883. Others keen to profit soon joined in. Buller records that also in 1883, a party of 11 Māori obtained 646 Huia skins from the forest between the Manawatu Gorge
and Akitio
. Several thousand Huia were exported overseas as part of this trade. Infrastructure development within lowland forest did not help the situation: hundreds of Huia were shot around road and rail construction camps.
The rampant and unsustainable hunting was not just financially motivated: it also had a more philosophical, fatalistic aspect. The conventional wisdom among New Zealand Europeans in the 19th century was that things colonial, whether they were plants, animals or people, were inferior to things European. It was widely assumed that the plants and animals of New Zealand's forest ecosystems would be quickly replaced by more vigorous and competitive European species. This assumption of inevitable doom led to a conclusion that the conservation of native biota was pointless and futile; Victorian collectors instead focused their efforts on acquiring a good range of specimens before the rare species disappeared altogether.
There were some attempts to conserve the Huia, but they were few, poorly organised and poorly enforced legally: the conservation movement in New Zealand was still very much in its infancy. There were successive sharp declines in numbers of Huia in the 1860s and in the late 1880s, prompting the chiefs of the Manawatu and the Wairarapa to place a rāhui
on the Tararua Range
. In February 1892, the Wild Birds Protection Act was amended to include the Huia, making it illegal to kill the bird, but enforcement was not taken seriously. Island sanctuaries were set up for endangered native birds after this Act, but the new bird sanctuaries, including Kapiti Island
, Little Barrier Island and Resolution Island
, were never stocked with Huia. Although attempts were made to capture birds for transfer, no Huia were ever transferred. The Kapiti Island attempt is documented as being particularly poorly managed. A live pair destined to be transferred to the island in 1893 was instead appropriated by Buller, who bent the law to take them back to England as a present for Lord Rothschild
, along with the last collected live pair of Laughing Owl
s.
The Duke
and Duchess of York
, later King George V
and Queen Mary
, visited New Zealand in 1901. At an official Māori welcome in Rotorua
, a guide took a Huia tail feather from her hair and placed it in the band of the Duke's hat as a token of respect. Many people in England and New Zealand wanted to emulate this royal fashion and wear Huia feathers in their hats. The price of tail feathers was soon pushed to £1, making each bird worth £12, and some feathers sold for as much as £5. Female Huia beaks were also set in gold as jewellery. Shooting season notices ceased listing the Huia as a protected species in 1901, and a last-ditch attempt to reinforce government protection failed when the Solicitor General ruled that there was no law to protect feathers.
The decline of the Huia over the southern half of the North Island occurred at markedly different rates in different locations. Areas where dramatic declines were observed in the 1880s included the Puketoi Range, the Hutt Valley and Tararuas, and the Pahiatua
-Dannevirke
area. The species was abundant in a few places in the early 20th century between Hawke's Bay and the Wairarapa; a flock of 100–150 birds was reported at the summit of the Akatarawa-Waikane track in 1905; they were still "fairly plentiful" in the upper reaches of the Rangitikei River
in 1906 – and yet, the last confirmed sighting came just one year later.
The last official, confirmed Huia sighting was made on 28 December 1907 when W. W. Smith saw three birds in the forests of the Tararua Ranges. Unconfirmed, "quite credible" reports suggest that extinction for the species came a little later. A man familiar with the species reported seeing three Huia in Gollans Valley behind York Bay (between Petone
and Eastbourne
on Wellington Harbour), an area of mixed beech and podocarp forest well within the bird's former range, on 28 December 1922. Sightings of the Huia were also reported here in 1912 and 1913. Despite this, naturalists from the Dominion Museum
in Wellington did not investigate the reports. The last credible reports of Huia come from the forests of Te Urewera National Park
, with one from near Mt Urutawa in 1952 and final sightings near Lake Waikareiti
in 1961 and 1963. The possibility of a small Huia population still surviving in the Urewera ranges has been proposed by some researchers, but is considered highly unlikely. No recent expeditions have been mounted to find a living specimen.
Students at Hastings Boys' High School
organised a conference in 1999 to consider cloning the Huia, their school emblem. The tribe Ngāti Huia agreed in principle to support the endeavour, which would be carried out at the University of Otago, and a California-based internet start-up volunteered $100,000 of funding. However, Sandy Bartle, curator of birds at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
, said that the complete Huia genome
could not be derived from museum skins because of the poor state of the DNA
, and cloning was therefore unlikely to succeed.
Callaeidae
The small bird family Callaeidae is endemic to New Zealand. It contains three monotypic genera; of the three species in the family, only two survive and both of them, the Kokako and the Saddleback, are endangered species, threatened primarily by the predations of introduced mammalian species such...
and was endemic to the North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
of New Zealand. Its extinction in the early 20th century had two primary causes. The first was rampant overhunting
Overexploitation
Overexploitation, also called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Sustained overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource...
to procure Huia skins for mounted specimens
Taxidermy
Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...
, which were in worldwide demand by museums and wealthy private collectors. Huia were also hunted to obtain their long, striking tail feathers for locally fashionable hat decorations. The second major cause of extinction was the widespread deforestation
Habitat destruction
Habitat destruction is the process in which natural habitat is rendered functionally unable to support the species present. In this process, the organisms that previously used the site are displaced or destroyed, reducing biodiversity. Habitat destruction by human activity mainly for the purpose of...
of the lowlands of the North Island by European settlers to create pasture for agriculture. Most of these forests were ancient, ecologically complex primary forests, and Huia were not able to survive in regenerating secondary forest
Secondary forest
A secondary forest is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a major disturbance such as fire, insect infestation, timber harvest or windthrow, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident...
s. The last confirmed sighting of a Huia was on 28 December 1907 in the Tararua Ranges. Further credible sightings near Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
were reported until 1922,reported sightings were in Te Urewera National Park
Te Urewera National Park
Te Urewera National Park is one of fourteen national parks within New Zealand and is the largest of the four in the North Island. Covering an area of approximately 2,127 km², it is in the north east of the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island....
in the early 1960s.
The Huia was remarkable for having the most pronounced sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism
Sexual dimorphism is a phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species. Examples of such differences include differences in morphology, ornamentation, and behavior.-Examples:-Ornamentation / coloration:...
in bill shape of any species of bird in the world. The female's beak was long, thin and arched downward, while the male's was short and stout, like that of a crow
Crow
Crows form the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-size jackdaws to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia, the 40 or so members of this genus occur on all temperate continents and several...
. The sexes were otherwise similar, with orange wattles and predominantly black plumage with a green sheen. The birds lived in forests at both montane
Montane
In biogeography, montane is the highland area located below the subalpine zone. Montane regions generally have cooler temperatures and often have higher rainfall than the adjacent lowland regions, and are frequently home to distinct communities of plants and animals.The term "montane" means "of the...
and lowland altitudes – they are thought to have moved seasonally, living at higher altitude in summer and descending to lower altitudes in winter. Huia were omnivorous and ate insects, grubs and spiders, as well as the fruits of a small number of native plants. Males and females used their beaks to feed in different ways: the male used his bill to chisel away at rotting wood, while the female's longer, more flexible bill was able to probe deeper areas. Even though the Huia is frequently mentioned in biology and ornithology
Ornithology
Ornithology is a branch of zoology that concerns the study of birds. Several aspects of ornithology differ from related disciplines, due partly to the high visibility and the aesthetic appeal of birds...
textbooks because of this striking dimorphism, not much is known about its biology; it was little studied before it was driven to extinction. The Huia is one of New Zealand's best-known extinct birds because of this bill shape and its sheer beauty and special place in Māori culture
Maori culture
Māori culture is the culture of the Māori of New Zealand, an Eastern Polynesian people, and forms a distinctive part of New Zealand culture. Within the Māori community, and to a lesser extent throughout New Zealand as a whole, the word Māoritanga is often used as an approximate synonym for Māori...
and oral tradition
Maori mythology
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are the two major categories into which the legends of the Māori of New Zealand may usefully be divided...
. The bird was regarded by Māori as tapu (sacred), and the wearing of its skin or feathers was reserved for people of high status.
Taxonomy and etymology
The genus name, Heteralocha, derives from Ancient GreekAncient Greek
Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...
ἕτερος "different" and ἄλοχος "wife". It refers to the striking difference in bill shape between male and female. The specific name, acutirostris, derives from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
acutus, meaning "sharp pointed", and rostrum, meaning "beak", and refers to the beak of the female.
John Gould
John Gould
John Gould was an English ornithologist and bird artist. The Gould League in Australia was named after him. His identification of the birds now nicknamed "Darwin's finches" played a role in the inception of Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection...
described the Huia in 1836 as two species: Neomorpha acutirostris based on a female specimen, and N. crassirostris based on a male specimen—the epithet crassirostris derives from the Latin crassus, meaning "thick" or "heavy", and refers to the male's short bill. In 1840, George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray
George Robert Gray FRS was an English zoologist and author, and head of the ornithological section of the British Museum, now the Natural History Museum, in London for forty-one years...
proposed the name N. gouldii, arguing that neither of Gould's names was applicable to the species. In 1850, Jean Cabanis
Jean Cabanis
Jean Louis Cabanis was a German ornithologist.Cabanis was born in Berlin. He studied at the University of Berlin from 1835 to 1839, and then travelled to North America, returning in 1841 with a large natural history collection. He was assistant and later director of the Berlin University Museum,...
replaced the name Neomorpha, which had been previously used for a cuckoo
Cuckoo
The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos . Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute...
genus, with Heteralocha. In 1888 Sir Walter Buller wrote: "I have deemed it more in accordance with the accepted rules of zoological nomenclature to adopt the first of the two names applied to the species by Mr. Gould; and the name Neomorpha having been previously used in ornithology, it becomes necessary to adopt that of Heteralocha, proposed by Dr. Cabanis for this form."
The Huia appears to be a remnant of an early expansion of passerines in New Zealand, and is the largest of the three members of the family Callaeidae
Callaeidae
The small bird family Callaeidae is endemic to New Zealand. It contains three monotypic genera; of the three species in the family, only two survive and both of them, the Kokako and the Saddleback, are endangered species, threatened primarily by the predations of introduced mammalian species such...
, the New Zealand wattlebirds; the others are the Saddleback and the Kōkako
Kokako
The Kōkako is a forest bird which is endemic to New Zealand. It is slate-grey with wattles and a black mask. It is one of three species of New Zealand Wattlebird, the other two being the endangered Tieke and the extinct Huia...
. The only close relative to the family is the Stitchbird
Stitchbird
The Stitchbird or Hihi is a rare honeyeater-like bird endemic to the North Island and adjacent offshore islands of New Zealand. It became extirpated everywhere except Little Barrier Island but has been reintroduced to three other island sanctuaries and two locations on the North Island mainland...
; their taxonomic relationships to other birds remain to be determined. A molecular study of the nuclear RAG-1 and c-mos genes of the three species within the family proved inconclusive, the data providing most support for either a basally diverging Kokako or Huia.
Description
The Huia had black plumage with a green metallic tinge and distinctive rounded bright orange wattleWattle (anatomy)
A wattle is a fleshy dewlap or caruncle hanging from various parts of the head or neck in several groups of birds, goats and other animals. In some birds the caruncle is erectile tissue.The wattle is frequently an organ of sexual dimorphism...
s at the gape
Gape
In bird anatomy, the gape is the interior of the open mouth of a bird and the gape flange is the region where the two mandibles join together, at the base of the beak...
. In both sexes, the eyes were brown; the beak was ivory white, greyish at the base; the legs and feet were long and bluish grey while the claws were light brown. Huia had twelve long glossy black tail feathers, each tipped for 2.5–3 cm (1–1.2 in) with a broad band of white. Immature Huia had small pale wattles, duller plumage flecked with brown, and a reddish-buff tinge to the white tips of the tail feathers. The beak of the young female was only slightly curved. Māori referred to certain Huia as huia-ariki, "chiefly Huia". The huia-ariki had brownish plumage streaked with grey, and the feathers on the neck and head were darker. This variant may have been a partial albino
Albinism
Albinism is a congenital disorder characterized by the complete or partial absence of pigment in the skin, hair and eyes due to absence or defect of an enzyme involved in the production of melanin...
, or perhaps such birds were simply of great age. Several true albino Huia were recorded.
Although sexual dimorphism in bill shape is found in other birds, such as the riflebirds
Ptiloris
The genus Ptiloris consist of four riflebirds species of the Paradisaeidae family.It is distributed in the rainforests of New Guinea and Australia. Members of this genus are sexually dimorphic...
, sicklebills
Epimachus
Epimachus is a genus of birds of paradise from highland forests in New Guinea. They have long decurved sickle-like bills and long tails. Males of both species have extensive iridescent blackish to their plumage, while females are overall brown with barred underparts...
and other wood-excavating birds including some species of woodpecker
Woodpecker
Woodpeckers are near passerine birds of the order Piciformes. They are one subfamily in the family Picidae, which also includes the piculets and wrynecks. They are found worldwide and include about 180 species....
, it was most pronounced in the Huia. The beak of the male was short at approximately 60 mm (2.3 in) and slightly arched downwards and robust, very similar to that of the closely related Saddleback, while the female's beak was finer, longer at around 104 mm (4 in), and decurved (curved downward) like that of a hummingbird
Hummingbird
Hummingbirds are birds that comprise the family Trochilidae. They are among the smallest of birds, most species measuring in the 7.5–13 cm range. Indeed, the smallest extant bird species is a hummingbird, the 5-cm Bee Hummingbird. They can hover in mid-air by rapidly flapping their wings...
or honeyeater
Honeyeater
The honeyeaters are a large and diverse family of small to medium sized birds most common in Australia and New Guinea, but also found in New Zealand, the Pacific islands as far east as Samoa and Tonga, and the islands to the north and west of New Guinea known as Wallacea...
. The difference was not only in the bone; the rhamphotheca grew way past the end of the bony maxilla and mandible to produce a pliable implement able to deeply penetrate holes made by wood-boring beetle larvae. The skulls and mandibles of the Huia and Saddleback are very similar, the latter essentially miniatures of the former.
There are two possible explanations for the evolution of this sexual difference in bill shape. The most widely supported is that it allowed birds of different sexes to utilise different food sources. This divergence may have arisen because of a lack of competitors in these foraging niches in the North Island forest ecosystems. The other idea is that the ivory-coloured bill, which contrasted sharply with the bird's black plumage, may have been used to attract a mate. In animals that use sexually dimorphic physical traits to attract a mate, the dimorphic feature is often brightly coloured or contrasts with the rest of the body, as with the Huia. It has been suggested that as the female was the main provider of food for the chicks by regurgitation, this sex evolved the longer bill to obtain the protein-rich invertebrate diet required for the chicks.
Another, less obvious aspect of the Huia's sexual dimorphism was the minor size difference between the sexes. Males were 45 cm (18 in) long, while females were larger at 48 cm (19 in). Additionally, the tail of the male was about 20 cm (7.8 in) in length and the wingspan was between 21 and 22 cm (8.2–8.6 in), while the female's tail was 19.5 to 20 cm (7.6–7.8 in) and the female's wingspan was 20 to 20.5 cm (7.8–8 in).
Distribution and habitat
SubfossilSubfossil
Subfossil refers to remains whose fossilization process is not complete, either for lack of time or because the conditions in which they were buried were not optimal for fossilization....
deposits and midden
Midden
A midden, is an old dump for domestic waste which may consist of animal bone, human excrement, botanical material, vermin, shells, sherds, lithics , and other artifacts and ecofacts associated with past human occupation...
remains suggest that the Huia was once widespread in both lowland and montane native forest throughout the North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
, extending from the northernmost tip at Cape Reinga
Cape Reinga
Cape Reinga is the northwesternmost tip of the Aupouri Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is located over 100 km north of the nearest small town of Kaitaia. State Highway 1 extends all the way to the Cape, but until 2010 was unsealed gravel road for the...
to Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
and the Aorangi Range
Aorangi Range
The Aorangi Range in south eastern Wairarapa is the southernmost mountain range in the North Island and extends more than 20 kilometres north from Cape Palliser...
in the far south. Only a few Huia are known from the extensive pitfall deposits in the karst
KARST
Kilometer-square Area Radio Synthesis Telescope is a Chinese telescope project to which FAST is a forerunner. KARST is a set of large spherical reflectors on karst landforms, which are bowlshaped limestone sinkholes named after the Kras region in Slovenia and Northern Italy. It will consist of...
of the Waitomo caves area
Waitomo Caves
The Waitomo Caves are a village and cave system forming a major tourist attraction in the southern Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand, 12 kilometres northwest of Te Kuiti. The community of Waitomo Caves itself is very small, though the village has many temporary service workers...
and they are also rare or absent in fossil deposits in the central North Island and Hawke's Bay
Hawke's Bay
Hawke's Bay is a region of New Zealand. Hawke's Bay is recognised on the world stage for its award-winning wines. The regional council sits in both the cities of Napier and Hastings.-Geography:...
; it seems to have preferred habitats that are not well sampled by the deposits known at present. Its range appears to have contracted following Māori settlement in the middle 12th century. By the time of European settlement in the 1840s, the bird was found only in the forests of the southern North Island, south of a line from the Raukumara Range
Raukumara Range
The Raukumara Range lies north of Gisborne, near East Cape in New Zealand's North Island. It forms part of the North Island's main mountain chain, which runs north-northeast from Wellington to East Cape, and is composed primarily of greywacke, argillites, siltstones and sandstones. The North...
in the east, across the Kaimanawa Range
Kaimanawa Range
The Kaimanawa Range of mountains is located in the central North Island of New Zealand. They extend for 50 kilometres in a northeast/southwest direction through largely uninhabited country to the south of Lake Taupo, east of the "Desert Road"...
, to the Turakina River
Turakina River
The Turakina River is a river of the southwestern North Island of New Zealand. It flows generally southwestward from its source south of Waiouru, roughly paralleling the larger Whangaehu River, and reaches the sea 20 kilometres southeast of Wanganui....
in the Rangitikei
Rangitikei District
The Rangitikei District is a Territorial Authority located primarily in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region in the North Island of New Zealand, although a small part, the town of Ngamatea , of it lies in the Hawke's Bay Region...
in the west. In the south, its range extended to the Wairarapa
Wairarapa
Wairarapa is a geographical region of New Zealand. It occupies the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest...
and the Rimutaka Range
Rimutaka Range
The Rimutaka Range is one of several mountain ranges in the North Island of New Zealand which form a ridge running parallel with the east coast of the island between East Cape and Wellington.The ridge is at its most pronounced in the southern part of the island, where it consists of the Ruahine,...
east of Wellington. Reports collected by Walter Buller
Walter Buller
Walter Lawry Buller KCMG was a New Zealand lawyer, naturalist and ornithologist.Buller was the author of A History of the Birds of New Zealand , with illustrations by John Gerrard Keulemans. In 1882 he produced the Manual of the Birds of New Zealand as a cheaper, popular alternative...
and a single waiata (Māori song) suggest that the Huia was once also found in the Marlborough and Nelson districts of the South Island
South Island
The South Island is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand, the other being the more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean...
; however, it has never been identified in the rich fossil deposits south of Cook Strait, and there is no other evidence of the species' presence.
The Huia inhabited both of the two principal forest types in New Zealand. They were primarily found in broadleaf-podocarp forests where there was a dense understorey, but occasionally also in Southern Beech (Nothofagus
Nothofagus
Nothofagus, also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 35 species of trees and shrubs native to the temperate oceanic to tropical Southern Hemisphere in southern South America and Australasia...
) forest. The species was observed in native vegetation including Mataī (Prumnopitys taxifolia
Prumnopitys taxifolia
Prumnopitys taxifolia is an endemic New Zealand coniferous tree that grows on the North Island and South Island. It also occurs on Stewart Island/Rakiura but is uncommon there....
), Rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum
Dacrydium cupressinum
Dacrydium cupressinum, commonly known as rimu, is a large evergreen coniferous tree endemic to the forests of New Zealand. It is a member of the southern conifer group, the podocarps. The former name "red pine" has fallen out of common use....
), Kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides
Dacrycarpus dacrydioides
Dacrycarpus dacrydioides or kahikatea is a coniferous tree endemic to New Zealand.The tree grows to a height of with a trunk exceeding in diameter, and is buttressed at the base. It is dominant in lowland forest and wetlands throughout the North and South Islands...
), Northern Rātā (Metrosideros robusta
Metrosideros robusta
Northern rātā , is a huge forest tree endemic to New Zealand. It grows up to 25 m or taller, and usually begins its life as a hemiepiphyte high in the branches of a mature forest tree; over centuries the young tree sends descending and girdling roots down and around the trunk of its host,...
), Maire (Nestegis
Nestegis
Nestegis is a genus of flowering plant in the olive family, Oleaceae. There are a small number of species in the genus: three species are endemic to New Zealand, one can be found on New Zealand and Norfolk Island, another is restricted to Hawaii, one in Australia...
), Hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus
Elaeocarpus dentatus
Elaeocarpus dentatus, commonly known as the Hinau, is a species of flowering plant in the Elaeocarpaceae family, bearing bitter edible fruit found in New Zealand.It was first collected on 5 November 1769....
), Totara (Podocarpus totara
Podocarpus totara
Podocarpus totara is a species of podocarp tree endemic to New Zealand. It grows throughout the North Island and northeastern South Island in lowland, montane and lower subalpine forest at elevations of up to 600 m.-Description:...
), Rewarewa (Knightia excelsa), Mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus
Melicytus ramiflorus
Melicytus ramiflorus is a small tree of the family Violaceae endemic to New Zealand.It grows up to 10 metres high with a trunk up to 60 cm in diameter, it has smooth, whitish bark and brittle twigs...
), and Taraire (Beilschmiedia tarairi), and at sea level in Karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus) trees at Cape Turakirae
Turakirae Head
Turakirae Head is a promontory on the southern coast of New Zealand's North Island. It is located at the western end of Palliser Bay, 20 kilometres southeast of Wellington, at the southern end of the Rimutaka Ranges. The head is an excellent example of tectonic uplift within the Wellington region...
. It was never seen in burnt forest or land cleared for farming.
Ecology and behaviour
Movements
The Huia's movements are little known, but it was most likely sedentary. The Huia is thought to have undertaken seasonal movements, living in montane forests in the summer and moving down into lowland forests in the winter to avoid the harsher weather and cold temperatures of higher altitudes. Like the surviving New Zealand wattlebirds, the Saddleback and the Kōkako, the Huia was a weak flier and could only fly for short distances, and seldom above tree height. More often it would use its powerful legs to propel it in long leaps and bounds through the canopy or across the forest floor, or cling vertically to tree trunks with its tail spread for balance.Feeding and ecology
The Huia, with the previously endangered Saddleback, were the two species of classic bark and wood probers in the arboreal insectivore guildGuild (ecology)
A guild is any group of species that exploit the same resources, often in related ways. As can be seen from the list of examples below, it does not follow that the species within a guild occupy the same, or even similar, ecological niches...
in the New Zealand avifauna. Woodpeckers do not occur east of Wallace's line
Wallace Line
The Wallace Line separates the ecozones of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia. West of the line are found organisms related to Asiatic species; to the east, a mixture of species of Asian and Australian origin is present...
; their ecological niche
Ecological niche
In ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem to each other; e.g. a dolphin could potentially be in another ecological niche from one that travels in a different pod if the members of these pods utilize significantly different food...
is filled by other groups of birds that feed on wood-boring beetle larvae, albeit in rotting wood. The woodpecker-like role was taken on by two species in two different families in the New Zealand mixed-podocarp and Nothofagus forests; one was the Huia and the other was the Kaka.
The Huia foraged mainly on decaying wood. Although it was considered a specialist predator of the larva
Larva
A larva is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle...
e of the nocturnal Huhu beetle (Prionoplus reticularis), it also ate other insects including Weta
Weta
Weta is the name given to about 70 insect species endemic to New Zealand. There are many similar species around the world, though most are in the southern hemisphere. The name comes from the Māori word 'wētā' and is the same in the plural...
, insect larvae, spiders and fruit.
Insects and spiders were taken from decaying wood, from under bark, mosses and lichens, and from the ground. Huia foraged either alone, in pairs, or in small flocks of up to five, which were probably family groups. The sexual dimorphism of the bill structure gave rise to feeding strategies that differed radically between the sexes. The male used its adze
Adze
An adze is a tool used for smoothing or carving rough-cut wood in hand woodworking. Generally, the user stands astride a board or log and swings the adze downwards towards his feet, chipping off pieces of wood, moving backwards as they go and leaving a relatively smooth surface behind...
-like bill to chisel and rip into the outer layers of decaying wood, while the female probed areas inaccessible to the male, such as the burrows of insect larvae in living wood. The male had well-developed cranial musculature allowing rotten wood to be chiselled and pried apart by "gaping" motions. There are corresponding differences in the structure and musculature of the head and neck between males and females. Huia had very well developed depressor jaw muscles, and an occipital crest
Internal occipital crest
In the occipital bone, the lower division of the cruciate eminence is prominent, and is named the internal occipital crest; it bifurcates near the foramen magnum and gives attachment to the falx cerebelli; in the attached margin of this falx is the occipital sinus, which is sometimes duplicated.In...
that provided extra surface for muscle attachment, allowing the jaw to be opened with considerable force. Once the bird had secured a meal, it flew to a perch with the insect in its feet. The Huia stripped its meal of any hard parts, then tossed the remainder up, caught, and swallowed it.
A pair did not cooperate in feeding, at least not in a strict sense. All such reports are based on misunderstanding of an account by ornithologist Walter Buller
Walter Buller
Walter Lawry Buller KCMG was a New Zealand lawyer, naturalist and ornithologist.Buller was the author of A History of the Birds of New Zealand , with illustrations by John Gerrard Keulemans. In 1882 he produced the Manual of the Birds of New Zealand as a cheaper, popular alternative...
of a pair kept in captivity obtaining wood-boring beetle larvae. According to this misunderstanding, which has become part of ecological folklore, the male would tear at the wood and open larval tunnels, thus allowing the female to probe deeply into the tunnels with her long, pliant bill. Rather, the divergent bills represent an extreme example of niche differentiation
Niche differentiation
The term niche differentiation , as it applies to the field of ecology, refers to the process by which natural selection drives competing species into different patterns of resource use or different niches...
, reducing intraspecific competition
Intraspecific competition
Intraspecific competition is a particular form of competition in which members of the same species vie for the same resource in an ecosystem...
between the sexes. This allowed the species to exploit a wide range of food sources in different microhabitats.
The New Zealand forest relies heavily on frugivorous birds for seed dispersal: about 70% of the woody plants have fruits that are probably dispersed by birds, which included the Huia. The range of fruits eaten by the Huia is difficult to establish: Hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus
Elaeocarpus dentatus
Elaeocarpus dentatus, commonly known as the Hinau, is a species of flowering plant in the Elaeocarpaceae family, bearing bitter edible fruit found in New Zealand.It was first collected on 5 November 1769....
), Pigeonwood (Hedycarya arborea) and various species of Coprosma
Coprosma
Coprosma is a genus of 108 species that are found in New Zealand , Hawaii , Borneo, Java, New Guinea, islands of the Pacific Ocean to Australia and the Juan Fernández Is. Many species are small shrubs with tiny evergreen leaves, but a few are small trees and have much larger leaves...
are recorded by Buller, and they were also recorded as eating the fruits of Kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides
Dacrycarpus dacrydioides
Dacrycarpus dacrydioides or kahikatea is a coniferous tree endemic to New Zealand.The tree grows to a height of with a trunk exceeding in diameter, and is buttressed at the base. It is dominant in lowland forest and wetlands throughout the North and South Islands...
). The extinction of the Huia and other frugivorous New Zealand bird species including the moa
Moa
The moa were eleven species of flightless birds endemic to New Zealand. The two largest species, Dinornis robustus and Dinornis novaezelandiae, reached about in height with neck outstretched, and weighed about ....
and Piopio
North Island Piopio
The North Island Piopio, Turnagra tanagra, was a passerine bird of the Turnagridae family. The North Island Piopio is now considered to be extinct...
, and the diminishing range of many others, including the kiwi
Kiwi
Kiwi are flightless birds endemic to New Zealand, in the genus Apteryx and family Apterygidae.At around the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites and lay the largest egg in relation to their body size of any species of bird in the world...
, Weka
Weka
The Weka or woodhen is a flightless bird species of the rail family. It is endemic to New Zealand, where four subspecies are recognized. Weka are sturdy brown birds, about the size of a chicken. As omnivores, they feed mainly on invertebrates and fruit...
, and Kōkako
Kokako
The Kōkako is a forest bird which is endemic to New Zealand. It is slate-grey with wattles and a black mask. It is one of three species of New Zealand Wattlebird, the other two being the endangered Tieke and the extinct Huia...
, has left few effective seed dispersers in the New Zealand forest. For plants with fruit greater than 1 cm in diameter, Kereru
Kereru
The New Zealand Pigeon or kererū is a bird endemic to New Zealand. Māori call it Kererū in most of the country but kūkupa and kūkū in some parts of the North Island, particularly in Northland...
are the sole remaining dispersers in the ecosystem, and they are rare or extinct in some areas. This depletion of avifauna in the forest ecosystem may be having major impacts on processes such as forest regeneration and seed dispersal.
Voice
Like so many other aspects of its biology, the vocalisations of the Huia are not well known, and present knowledge is based on very few accounts. The calls were mostly a varied array of whistles, "peculiar and strange", but also "soft, melodious and flute-like". An imitation of the bird's call survives as a recording of 1909 Huia Search Team member Henare Haumana whistling the call (see External links). Huia were often silent. When they did vocalise, their calls could carry considerable distances – some were audible from up to 400 m (1300 ft) away through dense forest. The calls were said to differ between sexes, though there are no details. Calls were given with the bird's head and neck stretched outward and its bill pointing 30 to 45 degrees from the vertical. Most references describe Huia calls as heard in the early morning; one records it as the first bird to sing in the dawn chorusDawn chorus (birds)
The dawn chorus occurs when songbirds sing at the start of a new day. In temperate countries, this is most noticeable in spring, when the birds are either defending a breeding territory or trying to attract a mate. In a given location, it is common for different species to do their dawn singing at...
, and captive birds were known to "wake the household". Like the Whitehead
Whitehead (bird)
The Whitehead or Pōpokotea is a small species of passerine bird endemic to New Zealand...
, Huia behaved unusually before the onset of wet weather, being "happy and in full song". The bird's name is onomatopoeic: it was named by Māori for its loud distress call, a smooth, unslurred whistle rendered as uia, uia, uia or where are you?. This call was said to be given when the bird was excited or hungry. Chicks had a "plaintive cry, pleasant to the ear", would feebly answer imitations by people, and were very noisy when kept in tents.
Commensals and parasites
A species of parasitic phtilopteridPhilopteridae
The Philopteridae are a family of Ischnocera, chewing lice mostly parasitic on birds.The taxonomy and systematics of the group are in need of revision; the Philopteridae are almost certainly paraphyletic.-Selected genera:...
louse
Louse
Lice is the common name for over 3,000 species of wingless insects of the order Phthiraptera; three of which are classified as human disease agents...
, Rallicola extinctus
Rallicola extinctus
Rallicola extinctus is an extinct species of phtilopterid louse. This parasite was only known to live on the now extinct Huia and is thought to have become extinct with its host. It was initially placed in its own separate genus, Huiacola, which means "Huia inhabitant". It was endemic to New...
, was only known to live on the Huia, and apparently became extinct with its host
Coextinction
Coextinction of a species is the loss of a species as a consequence of the extinction of another. The term was originally used in the context of the extinction of parasitic insects following the loss of their specific hosts...
. In 2008, a new species of feather mite, Coraciacarus muellermotzfeldi, was described from dried corpses found in the feathers of a Huia skin held by a European museum. While the genus Coraciacarus has a wide range of hosts globally, the presence of a representative of the genus on a passerine
Passerine
A passerine is a bird of the order Passeriformes, which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds or, less accurately, as songbirds, the passerines form one of the most diverse terrestrial vertebrate orders: with over 5,000 identified species, it has roughly...
bird was an "enigmatic phenomenon". The discoverers suggested the mite could have been horizontally transferred from one of the two native, migratory species of cuckoo
Cuckoo
The cuckoos are a family, Cuculidae, of near passerine birds. The order Cuculiformes, in addition to the cuckoos, also includes the turacos . Some zoologists and taxonomists have also included the unique Hoatzin in the Cuculiformes, but its taxonomy remains in dispute...
(Cuculiformes).
Social behaviour and reproduction
Walter Buller
Walter Lawry Buller KCMG was a New Zealand lawyer, naturalist and ornithologist.Buller was the author of A History of the Birds of New Zealand , with illustrations by John Gerrard Keulemans. In 1882 he produced the Manual of the Birds of New Zealand as a cheaper, popular alternative...
records that a tame pair would always keep close to each other, constantly uttering a "low affectionate twitter", even when in captivity. There are records of this same pair and a further, wild pair "hopping from branch to branch and fanning their tails, then meeting to caress each other with their bills" and uttering these noises. The male is said to have fed the female in courtship. It is thought that these behaviours may have been a sexual display. The claim that the male fed the female while she was incubating and on the nest "lacks evidence". When the male of this captive pair was accidentally killed, the female "manifesting the utmost distress pined for her mate and died 10 days afterwards". A Māori man in the 19th century recalled: "I was always told by my old people that a pair of Huia lived on most affectionate terms ... If the male died first, the female died soon after of grief". The Huia had no fear of people; females allowed themselves to be handled on the nest, and birds could easily be captured by hand.
Little is known about the Huia's reproduction, as only two eggs and four nests were ever described. The only known Huia egg to still exist is in the collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand, located in Wellington. It is branded and commonly known as Te Papa and Our Place; "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land".The museum's principles...
. The breeding season for mating, building nests, laying eggs and raising young is thought to have been late spring (October–November). It is thought they nested solitarily; pairs are said to have been territorial
Territory (animal)
In ethology the term territory refers to any sociographical area that an animal of a particular species consistently defends against conspecifics...
and the birds would remain on their territories for life. Huia appear to have raised just one brood per season; the number of eggs in a clutch is variously described as being 3–5,4,2–4 and 1–4. These eggs were greyish with purple and brown speckles, and measured 45 by 30 mm (1.8 by 1.5 in). Incubation
Avian incubation
Incubation refers to the process by which certain oviparous animals hatch their eggs, and to the development of the embryo within the egg. The most vital factor of incubation is the constant temperature required for its development over a specific period. Especially in domestic fowl, the act of...
was mostly by the female, though there is evidence that the male also had a small role, as rubbed-bare brooding patches that were smaller than those of females were discovered on some males in November. The incubation period is unknown. Eggshells were apparently removed from the nest by adults. The brood size was usually one or two, though there was the odd record of up to three chicks in a single nest. Nests were constructed in varying places: in dead trees, the crooks of large branches, tree hollows, on branches, or "on or near the ground", and some nests were covered with hanging vegetation or vines. The nest itself was a large saucer-shaped structure, up to 350 mm in diameter and 70 mm deep, with thick walls of dry grass, leaves and "withered stems of herbaceous plants". A central small, shallow cup of soft materials such as grass and fine twigs cushioned and insulated the eggs. After hatching, young remained in the family group and were fed by the adults for three months, by which time they appeared adult.
In culture
In Māori culture, the "white heron and the huia were not normally eaten but were rare birds treasured for their precious plumes, worn by people of high rank". The bold and inquisitive nature of the Huia made it particularly easy to capture. Māori attracted the Huia by imitating its call and then captured it with a tari (a carved pole with a noose at the end) or snare, or killed it with clubs or long spears. Often they exploited the strong pair bond by capturing one of a pair, which would then call out, attracting its mate, which could be easily captured. Opinion on the quality of Huia meat as food varied wildly; although not usually hunted for this purpose, the Huia was considered "good eating" in pies or curried stew by some, but a "tough morsel" and "unfit to eat" by others.Although the Huia's range was restricted to the southern North Island, its tail feathers were valued highly and were exchanged among tribes for other valuable goods such as pounamu and shark teeth, or given as tokens of friendship and respect. Through this trade, the feathers reached the far north and the far south of New Zealand. They were stored in intricately carved boxes called waka huia
Waka huia
Waka huia and Papa hou are treasure containers made by Māori - the indigenous people of New Zealand. These treasure containers stored a person's most prized personal possessions, such as hei-tiki , feathers for decorating and dressing the hair such as the tail feathers of the huia , heru and other...
, which were hung from the ceilings of chiefs' houses. Huia feathers were worn at funerals and used to decorate the heads of the deceased. The marereko, described by Edward Robert Tregear
Edward Robert Tregear
Edward Robert Tregear was a New Zealand public servant and scholar.-Biography:He was born in Southampton, England, on 1 May 1846, the son of Captain William Henry Tregear, a descendant of an old Cornish family. Tregear was educated in private schools and trained as a civil engineer. He arrived in...
as an "ancient war-plume", consisted of twelve Huia feathers. The highly valued pōhoi was an ornament made from the skin of the Huia: the bird was skinned with the beak, skull and wattles attached and the legs and wings removed, carefully dried, and the resulting ornament worn from the neck or ears. Dried Huia heads were also worn as pendants called ngutu huia. A captured Huia would be kept in a small cage so that its tail feathers could be plucked as they grew to full size.
The bird was also kept by Māori as a pet, and like the Tui
Tui (bird)
The tui is an endemic passerine bird of New Zealand. It is one of the largest members of the diverse honeyeater family....
, it could be trained to say a few words. There is also a record of a tame Huia kept by European settlers in a small village in the Forty-Mile Bush
Tararua District
The Tararua District lies near the south-east corner of New Zealand's North Island. Created in 1989, it was named after the Tararua Range, which forms much of its western boundary. It has a population of and an area of 4,360.56 km²....
in the 19th century.
New Zealand has released several postage stamps portraying the Huia, and the New Zealand sixpence circulated from 1933 to 1966 featured a female Huia on the reverse.
The degree to which the Huia was known and admired in New Zealand is reflected in the large number of suburban and geographical features which are named after the species. There are several roads and streets named after the Huia in the North Island, with several in Wellington (including Huia Road in Days Bay
Eastbourne, New Zealand
Eastbourne is a suburb of Lower Hutt city in the southern North Island of New Zealand. Its population is about 4,600.-Location:An outer suburb, it is situated on the eastern shore of Wellington Harbour, 5 kilometres south of the main Lower Hutt urban area, and directly across the harbour from the...
– not far from where one of the last sightings of this species occurred in the early 1920s in the forests of East Harbour Regional Park
East Harbour Regional Park
East Harbour Regional Park is a Wellington Regional park stretching from Baring Head along the east side of the Wellington Harbour along the east side of Eastbourne, New Zealand....
) and also in Auckland, where there is even a Huia suburb in Waitakere. A river
Huia River
The Huia River is a river of New Zealand's South Island West Coast. It flows north to meet with the Kakapo River two kilometres before the latter flows into the Karamea River, 17 kilometres to the east of Karamea.-References:...
on the west coast of the South Island and the Huiarau Range
Huiarau Range
The Huiarau Range is a range of mountains in the northeast of New Zealand's North Island. Part of the spine of mountains that run roughly parallel with the island's east coast, it is a southwestern extension of the Raukumara Range, lying between the end of that range and the North Island Volcanic...
s in the central North Island are also named after the bird. The species was once found living in great abundance in the forests of these mountains: Huiarau means "a hundred Huia". Businesses include the public swimming pool in Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt
Lower Hutt is a city in the Wellington region of New Zealand. Its council has adopted the name Hutt City Council, but neither the New Zealand Geographic Board nor the Local Government Act recognise the name Hutt City. This alternative name can lead to confusion, as there are two cities in the...
, a Marlborough winery, and Huia Publishers
Huia Publishers
Huia Publishers is an award-winning independent publishing company based in Wellington, New Zealand. The company was established in 1991 by Robyn Bargh to bring Māori voices in New Zealand literature by promoting Māori writers, Māori language and Māori perspectives.Many of the company’s books...
, which specialises in Māori writing and perspectives. The name was first given to a child in the late 19th century, to the son of members of a lower North Island iwi
Iwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...
concerned about the bird's rapid decline, and although uncommon, it is still used today in New Zealand as a name for girls and more rarely for boys (e.g. Huia Edmonds
Huia Edmonds
Huia Edmonds is an Australian rugby union footballer. He currently plays Hooker for the Brumbies in the international Super 14 competition.-Career:...
), of both European and Māori descent.
Tail feathers of the extinct Huia are very rare and they have become a collectors' item. In June 2010 a single Huia tail feather sold at auction in Auckland for NZ$8,000, much higher than the $500 the auctioneers had expected, making it the most expensive feather ever. The previous record price for a single feather was $US2,800 (NZ$4,000) achieved by a Bald Eagle
Bald Eagle
The Bald Eagle is a bird of prey found in North America. It is the national bird and symbol of the United States of America. This sea eagle has two known sub-species and forms a species pair with the White-tailed Eagle...
feather at auction in the United States.
Extinction
The Huia was found throughout the North Island before humans arrived in New Zealand. The Māori arrived around 800 years ago, and by the arrival of European settlers in the 1840s, habitat destruction and hunting had reduced the bird's range to the southern North Island. However, Māori hunting pressures on the Huia were limited to some extent by traditional protocols. The hunting season was from May to July when the bird's plumage was in prime condition, while a rāhuiRahui
In Māori culture, a rāhui is a form of tapu restricting access to, or use of, an area or resource by unauthorised persons. With the passing of the 1996 Fisheries Act, a rāhui can also be imposed by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries...
(hunting ban) was enforced in spring and summer. It was not until European settlement that the Huia's numbers began to decline severely, due mainly to two well-documented factors: widespread deforestation and overhunting.
Like the extinctions of other New Zealand birds such as the Piopio
North Island Piopio
The North Island Piopio, Turnagra tanagra, was a passerine bird of the Turnagridae family. The North Island Piopio is now considered to be extinct...
in the 19th century, the decline of the Huia was poorly studied. Massive deforestation occurred in the North Island at this time, particularly in the lowlands of southern Hawkes Bay, the Manawatu and the Wairarapa
Wairarapa
Wairarapa is a geographical region of New Zealand. It occupies the south-eastern corner of the North Island, east of metropolitan Wellington and south-west of the Hawke's Bay region. It is lightly populated, having several rural service towns, with Masterton being the largest...
, as land was cleared by European settlers for agriculture. The Huia was particularly vulnerable to this as it could only live in old-growth forest where there were abundant rotting trees filled with wood-boring insect larvae. It seems it could not survive in regenerating, secondary forest
Secondary forest
A secondary forest is a forest or woodland area which has re-grown after a major disturbance such as fire, insect infestation, timber harvest or windthrow, until a long enough period has passed so that the effects of the disturbance are no longer evident...
s. Although the mountainous part of its former range was not deforested, the lowland forests of the valleys below were systematically destroyed. The destruction of this part of its habitat would have undoubtedly had a severe impact on Huia populations, but its removal would have been particularly dire if they did in fact descend to the lowlands as a winter refuge to escape snow at higher altitudes as some researchers including Oliver have surmised.
It appears that predation by invasive mammalian species including ship rat
Black Rat
The black rat is a common long-tailed rodent of the genus Rattus in the subfamily Murinae . The species originated in tropical Asia and spread through the Near East in Roman times before reaching Europe by the 1st century and spreading with Europeans across the world.-Taxonomy:The black rat was...
s, cats, and mustelids was an additional factor in the decline in Huia numbers – introduction of these animals by New Zealand Acclimatisation Societies
Acclimatisation society
Acclimatisation societies were societies created in order to enrich the fauna of a region with animals and plants from around the world. The first such society was La Societé Zoologique d'Acclimatation founded in Paris in 1854 by Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. Such societies spread quickly around...
peaked in the 1880s and coincided with a particularly sharp decline in Huia populations. Because it spent a lot of time on the ground, the Huia would have been particularly vulnerable to mammalian predators. Another hypothetical cause of extinction is exotic parasites and disease introduced from Asia with the Common Myna
Common Myna
The Common Myna or Indian Myna also sometimes spelled Mynah, is a member of family Sturnidae native to Asia. An omnivorous open woodland bird with a strong territorial instinct, the Myna has adapted extremely well to urban environments...
.
Habitat destruction and the predations of introduced species were problems faced by all New Zealand birds, but in addition the Huia faced massive pressure from hunting. Due to its pronounced sexual dimorphism and its beauty, Huia were sought after as mounted specimens
Taxidermy
Taxidermy is the act of mounting or reproducing dead animals for display or for other sources of study. Taxidermy can be done on all vertebrate species of animals, including mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians...
by wealthy collectors in Europe and by museums all over the world. These individuals and institutions were willing to pay large sums of money for good specimens, and the overseas demand created a strong financial incentive for hunters in New Zealand. This hunting was initially by naturalists. Austrian taxidermist Andreas Reischek
Andreas Reischek
Andreas Reischek was an Austrian taxidermist, naturalist, ornithologist and collector notable for his extensive natural history collecting expeditions throughout New Zealand as well as being notorious for acts of grave robbing there...
took 212 pairs as specimens for the natural history museum in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
over a period of 10 years, while New Zealand ornithologist Walter Buller
Walter Buller
Walter Lawry Buller KCMG was a New Zealand lawyer, naturalist and ornithologist.Buller was the author of A History of the Birds of New Zealand , with illustrations by John Gerrard Keulemans. In 1882 he produced the Manual of the Birds of New Zealand as a cheaper, popular alternative...
collected 18 on just one of several expeditions to the Rimutaka Range
Rimutaka Range
The Rimutaka Range is one of several mountain ranges in the North Island of New Zealand which form a ridge running parallel with the east coast of the island between East Cape and Wellington.The ridge is at its most pronounced in the southern part of the island, where it consists of the Ruahine,...
s in 1883. Others keen to profit soon joined in. Buller records that also in 1883, a party of 11 Māori obtained 646 Huia skins from the forest between the Manawatu Gorge
Manawatu Gorge
The Manawatu Gorge runs between the Ruahine and Tararua Ranges of the North Island of New Zealand, linking the Manawatu and Hawke's Bay regions...
and Akitio
Akitio
Akitio is a coastal community in the Wairarapa Region of the lower east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The Akitio River runs for approximately 35 kilometres in a southeast by northwest direction, leading to the town of Weber, on State Highway 52....
. Several thousand Huia were exported overseas as part of this trade. Infrastructure development within lowland forest did not help the situation: hundreds of Huia were shot around road and rail construction camps.
The rampant and unsustainable hunting was not just financially motivated: it also had a more philosophical, fatalistic aspect. The conventional wisdom among New Zealand Europeans in the 19th century was that things colonial, whether they were plants, animals or people, were inferior to things European. It was widely assumed that the plants and animals of New Zealand's forest ecosystems would be quickly replaced by more vigorous and competitive European species. This assumption of inevitable doom led to a conclusion that the conservation of native biota was pointless and futile; Victorian collectors instead focused their efforts on acquiring a good range of specimens before the rare species disappeared altogether.
There were some attempts to conserve the Huia, but they were few, poorly organised and poorly enforced legally: the conservation movement in New Zealand was still very much in its infancy. There were successive sharp declines in numbers of Huia in the 1860s and in the late 1880s, prompting the chiefs of the Manawatu and the Wairarapa to place a rāhui
Rahui
In Māori culture, a rāhui is a form of tapu restricting access to, or use of, an area or resource by unauthorised persons. With the passing of the 1996 Fisheries Act, a rāhui can also be imposed by the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries...
on the Tararua Range
Tararua Range
The Tararua Range is one of several mountain ranges in the North Island of New Zealand which form a ridge running parallel with the east coast of the island between East Cape and Wellington....
. In February 1892, the Wild Birds Protection Act was amended to include the Huia, making it illegal to kill the bird, but enforcement was not taken seriously. Island sanctuaries were set up for endangered native birds after this Act, but the new bird sanctuaries, including Kapiti Island
Kapiti Island
-External links:* , Department of Conservation* * , Nature Coast Enterprise *...
, Little Barrier Island and Resolution Island
Resolution Island, New Zealand
Resolution Island is the largest island in Fiordland region of southwest New Zealand, covering a total of . It is the country's seventh largest island...
, were never stocked with Huia. Although attempts were made to capture birds for transfer, no Huia were ever transferred. The Kapiti Island attempt is documented as being particularly poorly managed. A live pair destined to be transferred to the island in 1893 was instead appropriated by Buller, who bent the law to take them back to England as a present for Lord Rothschild
Baron Rothschild
Baron Rothschild, of Tring in the County of Hertford, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created in 1885 for Sir Nathan Rothschild, 2nd Baronet, a member of the Rothschild banking family. He was the first person of the Jewish faith to be raised to the peerage...
, along with the last collected live pair of Laughing Owl
Laughing Owl
The Laughing Owl , also known as Whēkau or the White-faced Owl, was an endemic owl found in New Zealand, but is now extinct. It was plentiful when European settlers arrived in New Zealand in 1840. Specimens were sent to the British Museum, where a scientific description was published in 1845...
s.
The Duke
Duke of York
The Duke of York is a title of nobility in the British peerage. Since the 15th century, it has, when granted, usually been given to the second son of the British monarch. The title has been created a remarkable eleven times, eight as "Duke of York" and three as the double-barreled "Duke of York and...
and Duchess of York
Duchess of York
Duchess of York is the principal courtesy title held by the wife of the Duke of York. The title is gained with marriage alone and is forfeited upon divorce. Four of the twelve Dukes of York did not marry or had already assumed the throne prior to marriage, therefore there have only ever been eleven...
, later King George V
George V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
and Queen Mary
Mary of Teck
Mary of Teck was the queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V....
, visited New Zealand in 1901. At an official Māori welcome in Rotorua
Rotorua
Rotorua is a city on the southern shores of the lake of the same name, in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. The city is the seat of the Rotorua District, a territorial authority encompassing the city and several other nearby towns...
, a guide took a Huia tail feather from her hair and placed it in the band of the Duke's hat as a token of respect. Many people in England and New Zealand wanted to emulate this royal fashion and wear Huia feathers in their hats. The price of tail feathers was soon pushed to £1, making each bird worth £12, and some feathers sold for as much as £5. Female Huia beaks were also set in gold as jewellery. Shooting season notices ceased listing the Huia as a protected species in 1901, and a last-ditch attempt to reinforce government protection failed when the Solicitor General ruled that there was no law to protect feathers.
Pahiatua
Pahiatua is a rural service town in the south-eastern North Island of New Zealand with an urban and rural population of over 4,000. It is between Masterton and Woodville on State Highway 2 and the Wairarapa Line railway, north of Masterton and east of Palmerston North...
-Dannevirke
Dannevirke
Dannevirke , is a rural service town in the Manawatu-Wanganui Region of the North Island, New Zealand. It is the major town of the administrative Tararua District, the easternmost of the districts in which the Regional Council has responsibilities...
area. The species was abundant in a few places in the early 20th century between Hawke's Bay and the Wairarapa; a flock of 100–150 birds was reported at the summit of the Akatarawa-Waikane track in 1905; they were still "fairly plentiful" in the upper reaches of the Rangitikei River
Rangitikei River
The Rangitikei River is one of New Zealand's longest rivers, 185 kilometers long.Its headwaters are to the southeast of Lake Taupo in the Kaimanawa Ranges. It flows from the Central Plateau south past Taihape, Mangaweka, Hunterville, Marton, and Bulls, to the South Taranaki Bight at Tangimoana, 40...
in 1906 – and yet, the last confirmed sighting came just one year later.
The last official, confirmed Huia sighting was made on 28 December 1907 when W. W. Smith saw three birds in the forests of the Tararua Ranges. Unconfirmed, "quite credible" reports suggest that extinction for the species came a little later. A man familiar with the species reported seeing three Huia in Gollans Valley behind York Bay (between Petone
Petone
Petone is a major suburb of the city of Lower Hutt in New Zealand. It is located at the southern end of the narrow triangular plain of the Hutt River, on the northern shore of Wellington Harbour...
and Eastbourne
Eastbourne, New Zealand
Eastbourne is a suburb of Lower Hutt city in the southern North Island of New Zealand. Its population is about 4,600.-Location:An outer suburb, it is situated on the eastern shore of Wellington Harbour, 5 kilometres south of the main Lower Hutt urban area, and directly across the harbour from the...
on Wellington Harbour), an area of mixed beech and podocarp forest well within the bird's former range, on 28 December 1922. Sightings of the Huia were also reported here in 1912 and 1913. Despite this, naturalists from the Dominion Museum
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand, located in Wellington. It is branded and commonly known as Te Papa and Our Place; "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land".The museum's principles...
in Wellington did not investigate the reports. The last credible reports of Huia come from the forests of Te Urewera National Park
Te Urewera National Park
Te Urewera National Park is one of fourteen national parks within New Zealand and is the largest of the four in the North Island. Covering an area of approximately 2,127 km², it is in the north east of the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island....
, with one from near Mt Urutawa in 1952 and final sightings near Lake Waikareiti
Lake Waikareiti
Lake Waikareiti, also spelt Lake Waikare Iti, is located in Te Urewera National Park in the North Island of New Zealand. A number of hiking trails are found within the catchment basin of the lake....
in 1961 and 1963. The possibility of a small Huia population still surviving in the Urewera ranges has been proposed by some researchers, but is considered highly unlikely. No recent expeditions have been mounted to find a living specimen.
Students at Hastings Boys' High School
Hastings Boys' High School
Hastings Boys' High School is a boys' secondary school in Hastings, New Zealand. The school is part of the Super 8. The school was founded in 1909 as Hastings High School. Fifty years later, it split into Hastings Girls' School and Hastings Boys' School....
organised a conference in 1999 to consider cloning the Huia, their school emblem. The tribe Ngāti Huia agreed in principle to support the endeavour, which would be carried out at the University of Otago, and a California-based internet start-up volunteered $100,000 of funding. However, Sandy Bartle, curator of birds at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa is the national museum and art gallery of New Zealand, located in Wellington. It is branded and commonly known as Te Papa and Our Place; "Te Papa Tongarewa" is broadly translatable as "the place of treasures of this land".The museum's principles...
, said that the complete Huia genome
Genome
In modern molecular biology and genetics, the genome is the entirety of an organism's hereditary information. It is encoded either in DNA or, for many types of virus, in RNA. The genome includes both the genes and the non-coding sequences of the DNA/RNA....
could not be derived from museum skins because of the poor state of the DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
, and cloning was therefore unlikely to succeed.
External links
- 3D view of specimens RMNH 110.080, RMNH 110.081, RMNH 110.101, RMNH 110.102, RMNH 110.107, RMNH 110.108 and RMNH 110.109 at NaturalisNaturalisNaturalis is the national natural history museum of the Netherlands, based in Leiden. It originated from the merger of the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie and the Rijksmuseum van Geologie en Mineralogie in 1984. In 1986 it was decided that the museum had to become a public museum and a new...
, Leiden (requires QuickTimeQuickTimeQuickTime is an extensible proprietary multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. The classic version of QuickTime is available for Windows XP and later, as well as Mac OS X Leopard and...
browser plugin). - Huia specimens at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa
- Huia calls (imitation)