The New Zealand fernbird or simply fernbird (''Poodytes punctatus'') is an
insectivorous
A robber fly eating a hoverfly
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
The first vertebrate insectivores were ...
bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...
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 ...
to
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. In the
Māori language
Māori (), or ('the Māori language'), also known as ('the language'), is an Eastern Polynesian language spoken by the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. Closely related to Cook Islands Māori, Tuamotuan, and ...
, it is named or .
Taxonomy
The New Zealand fernbird was
described by the French zoologists
Jean Quoy and
Joseph Gaimard in 1832 from a specimen collected in
Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere
Tasman Bay (; officially Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere), originally known in English as Blind Bay, is a large V-shaped bay at the north end of New Zealand's South Island. Located in the centre of the island's northern coast, it stretches along ...
, South Island,
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. They coined the
binomial name
In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...
, ''Synallaxis punctata''.
In the past, this species had the binomial name ''Megalurus punctatus.''
There are five
subspecies
In biological classification, subspecies is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (morphology), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species ...
present on different islands.
They differ in extent of reddish-brown and intensity of streaking, as well as size:
* ''P. p. vealeae'' (Kemp, R, 1912) – North Island (New Zealand)
* ''P. p. punctatus'' (Quoy & Gaimard, 1832) – South Island (New Zealand)
* ''P. p. stewartianus'' (
Oliver, 1930) –
Stewart Island
Stewart Island ( mi, Rakiura, ' glowing skies', officially Stewart Island / Rakiura) is New Zealand's third-largest island, located south of the South Island, across the Foveaux Strait. It is a roughly triangular island with a total land ar ...
(New Zealand)
* ''P. p. wilsoni'' (
Stead, 1936) –
Codfish Island
Codfish Island / Whenua Hou is a small island () located to the west of Stewart Island in southern New Zealand. It reaches a height of close to the south coast. The island is home to Sirocco, an internationally famous kākāpō, a rare speci ...
(=Whenua Hou, west of Stewart Island, New Zealand)
* ''P. p. caudatus'' (
Buller, 1894) –
Snares Island
The Snares Islands / Tini Heke, known colloquially as The Snares, is a group of uninhabited islands lying about 200 km south of New Zealand's South Island and to the south-southwest of Stewart Island / Rakiura. The Snares consist of the ma ...
(south of South Island, New Zealand)
The related
Chatham fernbird
The Chatham fernbird (''Poodytes rufescens'') is an extinct bird species that was endemic to the Chatham Islands. It was historically known only from Mangere Island, but fossils have been found on Pitt Island and Chatham Island as well. Its close ...
(''Poodytes rufescens''), which became extinct around 1900, was sometimes treated as a subspecies of this species.
Description
The adult has a brown plumage streaked in black. The head, the upperparts and the brown wings are streaked blackish. The long graduated tail is a duller brown, with the rectrices darker. On the underparts, the chin, throat, breast and abdomen are whitish, finely mottled and also streaked blackish on the breast. The flanks, the sides of the chest and the subcaudal covers are brown and streaked blackish, more clearly on the flanks. On the head, the forehead and cap are brown.
The presence of a whitish eyebrow may be more or less clear. The auricular coverts are grey-brown with darker fine streaks that blend into the brown of the upperparts on the sides of the neck.
The beak is blackish, with the lower mandible more gray. The eyes are dark brown. Legs and toes are pinkish-brown. Both sexes are similar and the juvenile also looks like the adults.
The New Zealand fernbird is a rich brown above and white below, with brown spots on both the throat and breast. Early settlers called it the "swamp sparrow", no doubt because of its colouration.
The tail feathers are thin, dark brown, and spine-like. The birds reach a length of 18 cm (7 in) ― as measured from tip of beak to end of tail. However, almost half of that is tail.
["Wetlands of New Zealand; A Bitter-Sweet story", Janet Hunt, Random House, 2007]
Ecology
![Bowdleria punctata (AM LB10379) (cropped)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b2/Bowdleria_punctata_%28AM_LB10379%29_%28cropped%29.jpg)
The New Zealand fernbird is a ground-dwelling bird, and is a reluctant flier, travelling mainly on foot or in occasional short flights of less than 15 metres. In the 19th century,
Walter Buller
Sir Walter Lawry Buller (9 October 1838 – 19 July 1906) was a New Zealand lawyer and naturalist who was a dominant figure in New Zealand ornithology. His book, ''A History of the Birds of New Zealand'', first published in 1873, was publishe ...
described it as "one of our most common"
birds, but it has been adversely affected by the subsequent widespread
destruction
Destruction may refer to:
Concepts
* Destruktion, a term from the philosophy of Martin Heidegger
* Destructive narcissism, a pathological form of narcissism
* Self-destructive behaviour, a widely used phrase that ''conceptualises'' certain kind ...
of its natural
wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
habitat following European settlement and is now rare.
The New Zealand fernbird is present in
Oceania
Oceania (, , ) is a region, geographical region that includes Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Spanning the Eastern Hemisphere, Eastern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres, Oceania is estimated to have a land area of ...
, mainly in wet shrubby environments with swamps, peat bogs or ponds, plantation areas, temperate shrublands. It occupies an extremely wide area of occurrence at 657,000 km².
The New Zealand fernbird is
insectivorous
A robber fly eating a hoverfly
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
The first vertebrate insectivores were ...
. It feeds on
caterpillars
Caterpillars ( ) are the larval stage of members of the order Lepidoptera (the insect order comprising butterflies and moths).
As with most common names, the application of the word is arbitrary, since the larvae of sawflies (suborder Symph ...
,
larvae
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
The ...
,
beetles
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
, flies and
moths
Moths are a paraphyletic group of insects that includes all members of the order Lepidoptera that are not butterflies, with moths making up the vast majority of the order. There are thought to be approximately 160,000 species of moth, many of w ...
, as well as small
spiders
Spiders ( order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs, chelicerae with fangs generally able to inject venom, and spinnerets that extrude silk. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species dive ...
emerging from the cocoon. It sometimes consumes seeds and fruits.
Its song is a series of rapid whistles and clicks. The contact between the two partners is a duet, a sonorous "uu" for the male, to which the female answers with a high-pitched "tick". The calls are metallic. When disturbed or threatened, the male emits a typical "too-lit" and "di,di,di,di" repeated at a rapid pace.
Breeding
The birds nest in sedges or other vegetation close to the ground, making a deep woven cup of dried rushes lined with feathers. Breeding occurs from September to February, producing clutches of 2-3 pinkish-white eggs with brown or purple speckles. The
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
phrase "te whare o te mātātā" (a fernbird's house) describes a woven flax cape, made to keep out the weather; a testament to the design and strength of the nest.
Both adults
incubate for about 13 days. The chicks are fed small insects by the parents. They leave the nest after 15-17 days and sometimes at 20-21 days after hatching. They can breed as early as 9 months of age. Pairs raise between 1 and 3 broods. Juveniles still depend on the parents for food for a few weeks after leaving the nest.
Place in Māori culture
Māori revered the fernbird as an "oracle" or "wise bird" (''Manu tohu'').
The calls of the bird were interpreted as heralding success or failure in daily activities such as fishing, but on a more serious level they could also portend prosperity and health or disaster and death.
Conservation status
Although the
population
Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...
is in decline, it is considered by the
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
as a species of
Least Concern
A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...
.
New Zealand fernbird populations are affected by wetland
drainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of a surface's water and sub-surface water from an area with excess of water. The internal drainage of most agricultural soils is good enough to prevent severe waterlogging (anaerobic conditio ...
and rat
predation
Predation is a biological interaction where one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation (which usually do not kill the ...
.
Notes
References
* Falla, R.A., Sibson, R.B., and Turbott, E.G. (1970). ''A Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand.'' London: Collins.
* Marshall, J., Kinsky, F.C., and Robinson, C.J.R. (1982). ''The Fiat Book of Common birds in New Zealand.'' Wellington: A.H. and A.W. Reed.
External links
* http://www.nzbirdsonline.org.nz/species/fernbird
{{Taxonbar, from=Q25245111
Endemic birds of New Zealand
Poodytes
Birds described in 1832
Taxa named by Jean René Constant Quoy
Taxa named by Joseph Paul Gaimard