The New Zealand parrot family, Strigopidae,Nestoridae and Strigopidae are described in the same article, Bonaparte, C.L. (1849) ''Conspectus Systematis Ornithologiae''. Therefore, under rules of the ICZN, the first reviser determines priority, which is Bonaparte, C.L. (1850), ''Conspectus Generum Avium'', E.J. Brill, Leyden. consists of at least three

genera Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family as used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In binomial nomenclature, the genus name forms the first part of the binomial s ...

parrot Parrots (Psittaciformes), also known as psittacines (), are birds with a strong curved beak, upright stance, and clawed feet. They are classified in four families that contain roughly 410 species in 101 genus (biology), genera, found mostly in ...

s – '' Nestor'', '' Strigops'', the fossil '' Nelepsittacus'', and probably the fossil ''

Heracles Heracles ( ; ), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a Divinity, divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of ZeusApollodorus1.9.16/ref> and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive descent through ...

''. The genus ''Nestor'' consists of the

kea The kea ( ; ; ''Nestor notabilis'') is a species of large parrot in the Family (biology), family Strigopidae that is endemic to the forested and alpine regions of the South Island of New Zealand. About long, it is mostly olive-green, with br ...

kākā The New Zealand kākā (''Nestor meridionalis'') is a large species of parrot of the family New Zealand parrot, Strigopidae found in New Zealand, New Zealand's native forests across the three main Islands of New Zealand. The species is often kn ...

, Norfolk kākā and Chatham kākā, while the genus ''Strigops'' contains the iconic kākāpō. All extant species are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. The species of the genus ''Nelepsittacus'' were endemics of the main islands, while the two extinct species of the genus ''Nestor'' were found at the nearby oceanic islands such as

Chatham Island Chatham Island ( ) ( Moriori: , 'Misty Sun'; ) is the largest island of the Chatham Islands group, in the south Pacific Ocean off the eastern coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is said to be "halfway between the equator and the pole, a ...

of New Zealand, and Norfolk Island and adjacent Phillip Island. The Norfolk kākā and the Chatham kākā have become extinct in recent times, while the species of the genus ''Nelepsittacus'' have been extinct for 16 million years. All extant species, the kākāpō, kea, and the two subspecies of the kākā, are threatened. Database entry includes a range map and justification for why this species is endangered, Database entry includes a range map and justification for why this species is endangered. Database entry includes a range map and justification for why this species is endangered. Human activity caused the two extinctions and the decline of the other three species. Settlers introduced

invasive species An invasive species is an introduced species that harms its new environment. Invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native spec ...

, such as pigs, cats, foxes, weasels, rats and

possums Possum may refer to: Animals * Didelphimorphia, or (o)possums, an order of marsupials native to the Americas ** Didelphis, a genus of marsupials within Didelphimorphia *** Common opossum, native to Central and South America *** Virginia opossum, ...

, which eat the eggs of ground-nesting birds, and additional declines have been caused by hunting for food, killing as agricultural pests,

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss or habitat reduction) occurs when a natural habitat is no longer able to support its native species. The organisms once living there have either moved elsewhere, or are dead, leading to a decrease ...

, and introduced

wasp A wasp is any insect of the narrow-waisted suborder Apocrita of the order Hymenoptera which is neither a bee nor an ant; this excludes the broad-waisted sawflies (Symphyta), which look somewhat like wasps, but are in a separate suborder ...

s. The family diverged from the other parrots around 82 million years ago when New Zealand broke off from Gondwana, while the ancestors of the genera ''Nestor'' and ''Strigops'' diverged from each other between 60 and 80 million years ago.

Systematics

No consensus existed regarding the taxonomy of Psittaciformes until recently. The placement of the Strigopoidea species has been variable in the past. The family belongs to its own superfamily Strigopoidea. This superfamily is one of three superfamilies in the order Psittaciformes; the other two families are Cacatuoidea ( cockatoos) and Psittacoidea ( true parrots).Leo Joseph, Alicia Toon, Erin E. Schirtzinger, Timothy F. Wright & Richard Schodde. (2012) A revised nomenclature and classification for family-group taxa of parrots (Psittaciformes). Zootaxa 3205: 26–40 While some taxonomists include three genera (''Nestor'', ''Nelepsittacus'', and ''Strigops'') in the family Strigopidae, others place ''Nestor'' and ''Nelepsittacus'' in the Nestoridae and retain only ''Strigops'' in the Strigopidae. Traditionally, the species of the family Strigopoidea were placed in the superfamily Psittacoidea, but several studies confirmed the unique placement of this group at the base of the parrot tree.

Phylogeography

An unproven hypothesis for the phylogeography of this group has been proposed, providing an example of various speciation mechanisms at work. In this scenario, ancestors of this group became isolated from the remaining parrots when New Zealand broke away from Gondwana about 82 million years ago, resulting in a physical separation of the two groups. This mechanism is called

allopatric speciation Allopatric speciation () – also referred to as geographic speciation, vicariant speciation, or its earlier name the dumbbell model – is a mode of speciation that occurs when biological populations become geographically isolated from ...

. Over time, ancestors of the two surviving genera, ''Nestor'' and ''Strigops'', adapted to different

ecological niche In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition. Three variants of ecological niche are described by It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of Resource (biology), resources an ...

s. This led to reproductive isolation, an example of ecological speciation. In the

Pliocene The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58Southern Alps / Kā Tiritiri o te Moana diversified the landscape and provided new opportunities for speciation within the genus ''Nestor''. Around three million years ago, two lineages may have adapted to high altitude and low altitude, respectively. The high-altitude lineage gave rise to the modern kea, while the low-altitude lineage gave rise to the various kākā species. Island species diverge rapidly from mainland species once a few vagrants arrive at a suitable island. Both the Norfolk kākā and the Chatham kākā are the result of migration of a limited number of individuals to islands and subsequent adaptation to the habitat of those islands. The lack of DNA material for the Chatham kākā makes it difficult to establish precisely when those speciation events occurred. Finally, in recent times, the kākā populations at the

North Island The North Island ( , 'the fish of Māui', historically New Ulster) is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but less populous South Island by Cook Strait. With an area of , it is the List ...

and

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

became isolated from each other due to the rise in sea levels when the continental

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

s melted at the end of the

Pleistocene The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...

. Until modern times, New Zealand and the surrounding islands were not inhabited by four-legged mammals, an environment that enabled some birds to make nests on the ground and others to be flightless without fear of predation. The parakeet species belonging to the genus '' Cyanoramphus'' ( kākāriki) belong to the true parrot family Psittacidae and are closely related to the endemic genus '' Eunymphicus'' from New Caledonia. They may have reached New Zealand between 450,000 and 625,000 years ago from mainland

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

by way of

New Caledonia New Caledonia ( ; ) is a group of islands in the southwest Pacific Ocean, southwest of Vanuatu and east of Australia. Located from Metropolitan France, it forms a Overseas France#Sui generis collectivity, ''sui generis'' collectivity of t ...

, but this is disputed.

Species

Very little is known about the Chatham kākā. The genus '' Nelepsittacus'' consists of three described and one undescribed species recovered from early Miocene deposits in Otago. The genus ''

'' consists of a giant species also described from the early Miocene of Otago.

Common names

All common names for species in this family are the same as the traditional Māori names. The Māori word ''kākā'' derives from the ancient Proto-Polynesian word meaning parrot. ''Kākāpō'' is a logical extension of that name, as ''pō'' means night, resulting in ''kākā of the night'' or night parrot, reflecting the species' nocturnal behaviour. (In modern

orthography An orthography is a set of convention (norm), conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, punctuation, Word#Word boundaries, word boundaries, capitalization, hyphenation, and Emphasis (typography), emphasis. Most national ...

of the

Māori language Māori (; endonym: 'the Māori language', commonly shortened to ) is an Eastern Polynesian languages, Eastern Polynesian language and the language of the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. The southernmost membe ...

, the long versions of the

vowel A vowel is a speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract, forming the nucleus of a syllable. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness a ...

s '' a'' and '' o'' are written with macrons; i.e., ''ā'' and ''ō''. Note that a long ā in Maori should be pronounced like the a in English "father". The etymology of ''kea'' in Māori is less clear; it might be onomatopoeic of its ''kee-aah'' call.

Ecology

The isolated location of New Zealand has made it difficult for mammals to reach the island. This is reflected in the absence of land mammals other than bats. The main predators were birds: harriers, falcons, owls, and the massive, extinct Haast's eagle. Many of the adaptations found in the avifauna reflect the unique context in which they evolved. This unique balance was disrupted with the arrival of the Polynesians, who introduced the Polynesian rat and the '' kurī'' ( Polynesian dog) to the island. Later, Europeans introduced many more species, including large herbivores and mammalian predators. The three extant species of this family occupy rather different ecological niches, a result of the phylogeographical dynamics of this family. The kākāpō is a flightless,

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

species, well

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...

d to avoid the large diurnal

birds of prey Birds of prey or predatory birds, also known as (although not the same as) raptors, are hypercarnivorous bird species that actively predation, hunt and feed on other vertebrates (mainly mammals, reptiles and smaller birds). In addition to speed ...

on the island, while the local owls are too small to prey on the kākāpō at night. The kākāpō is the only flightless bird in the world to use a lek-breeding system. Usually, they breed only every 3–5 years when certain podocarp trees like rimu ('' Dacrydium cupressinum'') mast abundantly. The kea is well adapted to life at high altitudes, and they are regularly observed in the snow at ski resorts. As trees are absent in the alpine zone, they breed in hollows in the ground instead of in tree hollows like most parrot species.

Relationship with humans

Importance to the Māori

The parrots were important to the Māori in various ways. They hunted them for food, kept them as pets, and used their feathers in weaving such items as their '' kahu huruhuru'' ( feather cloak). Feathers were also used to decorate the head of the '' taiaha'', a Māori weapon, but were removed prior to battle. The skins of the kākāpō with the feathers attached were used to make cloaks (''kākahu'') and dress capes (''kahu kākāpō''), especially for the wives and daughters of chiefs. Māori like to refer to the ''kākā'' in the ''tauparapara'', the incantation to begin their ''mihi'' (tribute), because their voice (''reo'') is continuous.

Status

Of the five species, the Norfolk kākā and Chatham kākā became extinct in recent history. The last known Norfolk kākā died in captivity in London sometime after 1851, and only between seven and 20 skins survive. The Chatham kākā became extinct between 1500 and 1650 in pre-European times, after Polynesians arrived at the island, and is only known from subfossil bones. Of the surviving species, the kākāpō is critically endangered, with living individuals numbering only The mainland

is listed as endangered, alongside the

Threats

The fauna of New Zealand evolved in the total absence of humans and other mammals. Only a few bat species and sea mammals were present prior to colonisation by humans, and the only predators were birds of prey that hunt by sight. These circumstances influence the design of New Zealand's parrots, for example, the flightlessness of the kākāpō and the ground breeding of the kea. Polynesians arrived at Aotearoa between 800 and 1300 AD, and introduced the '' kurī'' (dog) and ''kiore'' (Polynesian rat) to the islands. This was disastrous for the native fauna, because mammalian predators can locate prey by scent, and the native fauna had no defence against them. The kākāpō was hunted for its meat, skin, and plumage. When the first European settlers arrived, the kākāpō was already declining, but still widespread. The large-scale clearance of forests and bush destroyed its habitat while introduced predators such as rats, cats, and stoats found the flightless, ground-nesting birds easy prey. The New Zealand kākā needs large tracts of forest to thrive, and the continued fragmentation of forests due to agriculture and logging has a devastating effect on this species. Another threat comes from competition with

introduced species An introduced species, alien species, exotic species, adventive species, immigrant species, foreign species, non-indigenous species, or non-native species is a species living outside its native distributional range, but which has arrived ther ...

for food, for example with

for the endemic mistletoe and rata and with

s for shimmering honeydew, an excretion of scale insects. Females, young, and eggs are particularly vulnerable in the tree hollows in which they nest. The kea nests in holes in the ground, again making it vulnerable to introduced predators. Another major threat, resulting from development of the alpine zone, is their opportunistic reliance on human food sources as their natural food sources dwindle.

Conservation

Recovery programs for the kākāpō and the kākā have been established, while the kea is also closely monitored. The living kākāpō are all in a breeding and conservation program. Each one has been individually named.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:New Zealand Parrot Strigopoidea Birds of New Zealand Taxa named by Charles Lucien Bonaparte