Kakapo

choi

Bird life in New Zealand | Cheep Dates; Efforts to conserve a pudgy parrot are finally being rewarded. Economist, Aug 31, 2019
https://www.economist.com/asia/2 ... ving-a-pudgy-parrot

Quote:

"Its patience may finally be rewarded. The rimu was in fruit this year, and more than 80 chicks hatched after a bumper crop [of rimu fruit], making this the best breeding season on record. Many have survived into adolescence, increasing the number of adult kakapos [sic] by a third, to 200 birds.

"But another threat to the kakapo is a lack of genetic diversity, because of low number and inbreeding. This is one reaso why fewer than half of kakapo eggs hatch. * * * Once laid, some eggs are sent away for [artificial] incubation and replaced by smart fakes, which wiggle and cheep sp that the mother is primed for heatchling's return. Sickly babies are reared for months by hand.

Note:
(a) kakapo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakapo
(large, flightless, nocturnal, ground-dwelling parrot; endemic to New Zealand; herbivorous)

Quote: "The common English name 'kakapo' comes from the Māori 'kākāpō,' from kākā ('parrot') + pō ('night'); the name is both singular and plural. 'Kākāpō' is increasingly written in New Zealand English with the macrons that indicate long vowels. * * * cannot fly, having relatively short wings for its size and lacking the keel on the sternum (breastbone), where the flight muscles of other birds attach.

(i) keel (bird anatomy)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keel_(bird_anatomy)
(ii) Chickens have keel, too. Still it can not fly (high). See Aves: More on Morphology. UC Museum of Paleontology (UCMP), Universoty of California Berkeley, undated
https://ucmp.berkeley.edu/diapsids/birds/birdmm.html
("As birds go, the domestic chicken is hardly built for high-performance flight. Yet even in the chicken skeleton shown here, many of the flight adaptations found in most birds can easily be seen. The sternum, or breastbone, bears a prominent keel where the flight muscles attach. (Note that Archaeopt eryx and several other early fossil birds lacked this sternal keel, and the flightless ratite birds -- such as the ostrich, emu, and rhea -- also lack the keel.)")

Latin-English dictionary:
* avis (noun femnine; plural avēs): "a bird"
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/avis

(b) rimu tree
(i) Dacrydium cupressinum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dacrydium_cupressinum
(commonly known as rimu, is a large evergreen coniferous tree endemic to the forests of New Zealand; Its lifespan is approximately 800 to 900 years. The straight trunk of the rimu is generally 1.5 m in diameter [compared with height of 20 to 35 mteres
(ii) Bronnie Jeynes (ranger), Counting Rimu Fruit on kākāpō Islands. Department of Conservation, Mar 16, 2018
https://blog.doc.govt.nz/2018/03/16/counting-rimu-fruit/
(illustration caption: "Various stages of rimu fruit developing")
(iii) a close-up of

Rimu Berries (3rd of 4). In Story: Te Ngahere – Forest Lore; The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, undated.
https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/14076/rimu-berries
(iv) "Rimu seeds, borne on the tips of upturned branchlets, take about 18 months to ripen after pollination." from the Web. After ingestion of the fruit/berry (with seed), seeds will come out of the rear end of a kakapo.