TIL: kakapo
Today I learned
Earth population of humans is more than 7 billion but there are fewer than 160 kakapo left in the world. These birds are also called night parrots. They do not fly. This is the heaviest parrot alive. The kakapo is also believed to be the oldest living bird. These birds are native to New Zealand. In 1970 there were only 18 known kakapo to be alive, so the recovery efforts are helping the small number grow.
Breading
These birds do not bread every year, they bread only when there is going to be enough rimu fruit. during breeding season, males produce a low "sonic" boom which in the mountains can be heard upto 5 kilometers away. The males compete for female attention, an activity that is not seen in other parrots. The males will keep the ritual going to attract females for up to 8 hours every night, for upto 2-3 months.
The females will lay between 1 and 4 eggs, and the females are soley responsible for taking care of the young. They must leave the nest at night in search of food, and may take care of their young upto 6 months.
Getting Around
Since these birds weigh between 1.4kg and 2.2kg and can not fly they get around now they mainly walk, jump or climb. Since they did not have many natrual preditors in New Zealnd. They do most of their sleeping durning the day and spend much of the night wandering alone in the forrest.
When a kakapo is friegtened it tends to freeze, in hopes itbelnds in with the back ground. Being the early days of New Zealand and the main preditors where avian this technique obviously worked out well. This year has been good for the kakapo, they have had a significant increase in new chicks this year with 33 having survived now for over 6 months. This is great news, in 2014 there were only 6 that were able to survive.
So far we do not completely know how long the kakapo can live for. I have seen estimates of up to 90 years, but the audubon site say they can live 120 years.
This post is part of the 30 day writting challenge by @dragosroua. Thank you for reading.
Thanks to SteemVerify.com and @elyaque
Thanks to @papa-pepper for the last gif.
Interesting article
Thank you it was interesting looking it up.
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Kakapo are pretty cool. You just got love a parrot that shags people.
Yes you do.
Today I learned about Kakapo's thanks to @smysullivan. Upvoted and followed.
Thank you for that, they are really amazing little birds.
I had no idea about these birds. I usually say the oldest bird in my town is one of the fascist city councillors here who is a former mayor, who targeted me and lied on the record, for truth speak in open meetings to residents.
(:
Nice post buddy!!!
Thanks, yeah they are old birds as well. We got a senator that been in office way to long and will not quite, tends to flip flop on his votes. but dumb people will not vote him out of office.
LOL.
Thanks again for everything man. I appreciate it a lot.
Just doing my best to help out. Surprised at how much it has seemed to help others being I'm just one person.
Thanks for the post and what a great job the kiwis are doing to bring back these birds from the edge of extinction
I really hope so, they are amazing little birds I think.
Was there bigger flightless parrots go extinct since European settlement
I am not sure, the article I read said the kakapo is the largest and there had been as few as 18 remaining but the conservation efforts have increased their numbers to over 120.