Stats

Lifespan: 10-20 yrs
Size: Medium
Diet: Omnivore
Activity: Diurnal
Social: Solitary
Biome: Temperate forest
Range: New Zealand
Movement: Flight
Breeding: Egg-laying
Defense: Speed
Status: Common

About

An endemic New Zealand honeyeater cloaked in iridescent dark plumage with a distinctive white throat tuft called a pōi; it is one of the few birds capable of producing sounds outside the range of human hearing, woven into complex songs used to defend flowering trees.

Life cycle

1.
egg
A small clutch of speckled eggs is incubated in a cup nest, turned and kept warm by the parent.
2.
hatchling
A pink, blind hatchling is fed by its parents in the nest, gaping its bill at every visit.
3.
juvenile
A feathered juvenile fledges from the nest, learning to fly and to forage close to its parents.
4.
adult
Fully grown with adult plumage and song.

Learn more

Taxonomy

Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Passeriformes
Family: Meliphagidae
Genus: Prosthemadera
Species: Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae