Fascinating facts about kiwi!

 

The Southern Tokoeka on Stewart Island doesn't mind being out during the day. But every other type
of kiwi is strictly nocturnal. Finding food is easier for the kiwi after dark. Once the sun goes down, many
of the underground creepy crawlies it likes to eat move upwards towards the surface of the soil.

But could there be another, more sinister reason why the kiwi prefers the shadow of the night? It's true
that in prehistoric times there were no land mammals around to attack it, but there were some ferocious
carnivorous birds which flew during the day. The goshawk, like today's New Zealand falcon, was a
deadly divebomber. New Zealand's giant prehistoric Haast's Eagle (now extinct), with its 3m wingspan
would also certainly have threatened the kiwi.

 

Way-finding whiskers
The strange whiskers growing from the kiwi's forehead and the base
of its beak are super-sensitive. These probably evolved to help the
bird feel its way through the dark and would be of great benefit to a
bird that mostly goes out at night.

A brilliant beak
The kiwi couldn't have evolved a more
perfect piece of hunting apparatus.
The kiwi is the only bird in the world
which has nostrils at the tip of its
beak! The kiw's beak is just like a
nose. To find food, it first uses its beak like a spear, probing it into the
soil. Under the ground, the kiwi sniffs out a tasty critter, then opens its
beak like a pair of chopsticks, clamps hard, and hauls its prey from the
earth. If a kiwi catches an earthworm, it doesn't pull its prey out of the
ground all in one go. Instead, the kiwi pulls in a series of smooth
movements, bit by bit. This is so that it doesn't break the worm in half.

This adaptation has probably evolved over time to enable to kiwi to make the best use of its
ground-living habits. Being able to sniff out its prey and then pull it out of the ground easily, is one
feature which has evolved to give kiwi an advantage over other birds.

Above are just a few of the kiwi's amazing adaptations. In fact, the more we find out about this bird, the
more incredible we realise it is. You can find out more in the Weird & Wonderful Kiwi Facts section of the
website.


 

 

 

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