The King Kong grosbeak or giant grosbeak (''Chloridops regiskongi'') is a

prehistoric Prehistory, also known as pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the use of the first stone tools by hominins 3.3 million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of ...

species of

Hawaiian honeycreeper Hawaiian honeycreepers are a group of small, passerine birds endemic to Hawaii. They are closely related to the rosefinches in the genus ''Carpodacus'', but many species have evolved features unlike those present in any other finch. Their great ...

, that was

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. It had the largest beak of the three ''

Chloridops ''Chloridops'' is an extinct genus of Hawaiian honeycreeper in the subfamily Carduelinae of the family Fringillidae. Distribution The birds were endemic to Hawaii. It comprised three species: two on the Big Island of Hawaii; and one that inhabi ...

'' species known to have existed. The King Kong grosbeak was described from

fossil A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserved ...

s found at Barber's Point and Ulupau Head on the island of

Oahu Oahu () (Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ''Oʻahu'' ()), also known as "The Gathering place#Island of Oʻahu as The Gathering Place, Gathering Place", is the third-largest of the Hawaiian Islands. It is home to roughly one million people—over t ...

. It was long, making it one of the largest Hawaiian honeycreepers. The osteology of the mandible strongly suggests that ''C. regiskongi'' was a sister-taxon of '' Rhodacanthis''. The unusual name given to the species came from a reporter's misquoting of ornithologist

Storrs L. Olson Storrs Lovejoy Olson (April 3, 1944 – January 20, 2021) was an American biologist and ornithologist who spent his career at the Smithsonian Institution, retiring in 2008. One of the world's foremost avian paleontologists, he was best known ...

’s discovery of the then-unnamed species as being "a giant, gargantuan, King Kong finch."

References

Chloridops Endemic fauna of Hawaii Extinct birds of Hawaii Hawaiian honeycreepers Late Quaternary prehistoric birds Quaternary birds of Oceania Holocene extinctions Birds described in 1991 Fossil taxa described in 1991 Taxa named by Helen F. James {{Hawaii-stub