Huia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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- This article is about the Huia, an extinct bird species. For the place, see Huia (place). For the frog genus, see Huia (genus).
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 Male (front) and female Huia
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| Heteralocha acutirostris (Gould, 1837) |
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Neomorpha acutirostris |
The Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris) was a bird endemic to New Zealand. It is now extinct, with no reliable sightings since W.W. Smith saw three birds in the Tararua Ranges on 28 December 1907.
[edit] Appearance
The bird had blue-black plumage, bright orange wattles at the gape and white-tipped tail feathers. It was the only bird known in which the bills of the male and female were radically different. The male's beak was short (approximately 60 mm) and straight while the female's beak was long and curved (up to 100 mm), a striking example of sexual dimorphism. Huia had been little studied by Western naturalists before they were driven to extinction.
[edit] Diet
Sexual dimorphism of the bill structure resulted in feeding strategies that differed radically between the sexes: The male used his bill to chisel into outer layers of decaying or live wood, whereas the female probed into areas inaccessible to the male, e.g. burrows of insect larvae in living wood. Anatomy of the male bird's head and neck musculature also suggests the male could insert his bill into rotting wood and force his bill open to split the wood. Diet consisted of insects and their larvae, spiders, and small berries.
Contrary to the popularized notion, the meals were not usually shared between pairs (although it may have occasionally occurred to strengthen the pair bond; as far as it is known, the huia was monogamous). Also, the birds did generally not cooperate in feeding, at least not in a strict sense. All such reports are based on misreading of a single account by Buller (1888), which in any case referred to a pair kept in captivity (Jamieson & Spencer, 1996). Rather, the differing bills represent an extreme example of niche differentiation, by which intraspecific competition between the sexes was reduced. Thus, the species as a whole could utilize a wider range of food sources better (Moorhouse, 1996). This phenomenon is not unique, but most pronounced in the huia, woodhoopoes and some birds of paradise (Frith, 1997) show a similar, but less extreme dimorphism, and the bills of many hummingbirds show sexual differences in length uncoupled to variations in body size, for example.
[edit] Reproduction
The breeding season was thought to be early summer, with the birds constructing a saucer-shaped nest about 35 cm across. Two to four greyish eggs of 30 to 40 mm were normally laid.
[edit] Habitat
Subfossil bones of Huia have been found in several North Island sites; however, live birds were only recorded by European settlers in southern areas of the island, normally the Tararua and Rimutaka Ranges. The bird shares its name with a small community in the Waitakere Ranges, where it may have once been found. Huia moved mainly on foot, flying weakly, and would call with a shrill whistle to ensure other members of the cohort were close by. An imitation of the bird's call survives as a recording of a 1909 Huia Search Team member, Henare Haumana whistling the call (NZ Sound Archives). The bird's common name may have been derived from its call.
[edit] Decline
Several naturalists, including Buller, noted that the birds were already in decline when European settlers arrived. The Huia's distinctive white-tipped black tail feathers were often worn by Māori chiefs as a sign of their status. Such feathers were revered as taonga (treasures) by Māori. The wearing of feathers as ornaments was later adopted by Pākehā women as a symbol of social standing. The birds were inqusitive and trapped easily upon imitation of their call — in 1888, a party of 11 Māori obtained 646 Huia skins from the forest between the Manawatu Gorge and Akitio. In February 1892, regulations making it illegal to kill or take Huia were passed; however, enforcement was not taken seriously. The visit of the Duke of York, later King George V, to New Zealand in 1901 produced a frenzied demand for Huia feathers, especially after the Duke wore a Huia tail feather in his hatband. The price of feathers was reportedly pushed to one pound each. The then Governor General, the Earl of Onslow, tried to provide further legal protection for the Huia, but the bird was reported extinct shortly afterwards. The last "official" sighting was on 28 December 1907 - but lingering reports after this date suggest the species extinction came a little later. A man familiar with the species reported seeing three Huia in Gollans valley behind York bay-Eastbourne, Wellington on 28 December 1922 [citation needed]. Huia had been seen many times in this area before (there were also reports of sightings here in 1912 and 1913) and this area of mixed beech and podocarp forest was well within the bird's known range - sadly, no effort was made by naturalists from the Wellington Museum to investigate.
[edit] Parasites
A species of phtilopterid louse has been described from the huia. Rallicola extinctus (Palma, 1999), formerly considered the only species of a separate genus Huiacola ("Huia inhabitant"), apparently became extinct with its host (Mey, 1990).
[edit] References
- BirdLife International (2004). Heteralocha acutirostris. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. IUCN 2006. Retrieved on 11 May 2006. Database entry includes justification for why this species is listed as extinct
- Buller, W. L. (1888) A History of the Birds of New Zealand, 2nd edition. Published by the author, London.
- Frith, C. B. (1997): Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris: Callaeidae)-like sexual bill dimorphism in some birds of paradise (Paradisaeidae) and its significance. Notornis 44(3): 177-184. PDF fulltext
- Gill, B. and Martinson, P. (1991) New Zealand's Extinct Birds Random Century, Auckland
- Jamieson, I. G. & Spencer, H. G. (1996): The bill and foraging behaviour of the Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris): were they unique? Notornis 43(1): 14–18. PDF fulltext
- Mey, E. (1990): Eine neue ausgestorbene Vogel-Ischnozere von Neuseeland, Huiacola extinctus (Insecta, Phthiraptera). Zoologischer Anzeiger 224(1/2): 49-73. [German with English abstract] PDF fulltext
- Moorhouse, R. J. (1996): The extraordinary bill dimorphism of the Huia (Heteraclocha acutirostris): sexual selection or intersexual competition? Notornis 43(1): 19–34. PDF fulltext
- Palma, R. L. (1999): Amendments and additions to the 1982 list of chewing lice (Insecta: Phthiraptera) from birds in New Zealand. Notornis 46(3): 373–387. PDF fulltext
- Morris, R. and Smith, H., ( 1995 ) " Wild South : Saving New Zealand's endangered Birds ", Random house , New Zealand
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