Kiwi Characteristics

Kiwi have many weird and wonderful features thanks to New Zealand's ancient isolation and lack of mammals. It is thought they evolved to occupy a habitat and lifestyle that elsewhere in the world would be filled by a mammal, and their one-off evolutionary design holds all sorts of biological records.

What’s so unusual?

Kiwi are flightless – their Latin species name is Apteryx, which means wingless. They belong to an ancient group of birds that can’t fly – the ratites. Because they can’t fly, how they arrived in New Zealand is not completely clear.

Kiwi habits and physical characteristics are so like a mammal the bird is sometimes referred to as an honorary mammal. It has feathers like hair, nostrils at the end of its beak and an enormous egg.

Most kiwi are nocturnal birds, like many of New Zealand’s native animals. Their calls pierce the forest air at dusk and dawn.

Kiwi are omnivores. Discover what foods they find with their unusual beak.

Even though kiwi are unusual enough, tall stories abound about the bird.

Rowi Project

BNZ Save the Kiwi Trust is helping put NZ’s most endangered kiwi species on the road to recovery.

Forestry & Kiwi

Depending on how they are managed, exotic forests can be useful kiwi habitat.

Did You Know?

Some people think kiwi use their beak to fight, like a sword. That would be like you head-butting someone with your nose. The kiwi’s nose is finely tuned and sensitive, second only to the condor in its ability to detect scent.