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Southern Brown Kiwi

Apteryx australis


Where is it found?

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Forests, scrubland and grassland

Diet and foraging method

Eats meat
Probes soil, sand and leaf litter searching for prey.
Eats insects.
Eats worms

Key adaptations

Long slender bill for searching for food in the soil.
External nostrils at the end of its beak for sensing (vibrations and smell) prey. As a consequence, individuals have to snuffle and snort dirt from their nostrils.

Social organisation and mating system

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Family groups
Breeding
Although kiwi's are monogamous, pairs will part ways if a "better" mate comes along. Males incubate the eggs, during which time they lose 1/3 of their body mass. Upon hatching, chicks do not need feeding as they can survive on the yolk in their belly and venture out of their burrows to explore.
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Did you know that...?

Kiwi's lay huge eggs!
Kiwi eggs are six times as big as normal for a bird of its size and they take up a whooping 20% of the mother's body - an Ostrich egg is only 2% of the mother's body mass!

Taxonomy

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Sources:

https://www.kiwisforkiwi.org/about-kiwi/kiwi-facts-characteristics/enormous-egg/
http://www.arkive.org/tokoeka/apteryx-australis/
http://www.birdlife.org/datazone/species/factsheet/22678122
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_brown_kiwi 
Maps from: http://species.mol.org/species/

"Tokoeka" by Glen Fergus - Own work, Stewart Island, New Zealand. Licenced under CC BY-SA 2.5 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tokoeka.jpg#/media/File:Tokoeka.jpg
"Kiwi and egg Picturesque New Zealand 1913" by Josiah Martin - http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/ba/Picturesque_New_Zealand%2C_1913.djvu/page409-495px-Picturesque_New_Zealand%2C_1913.djvu.jpg. Licenced under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kiwi_and_egg_Picturesque_New_Zealand_1913.jpg#/media/File:Kiwi_and_egg_Picturesque_New_Zealand_1913.jpg
"Kiwi bird in Christchurch, New Zealand, 2002-01-01" by Allie_Caulfield - originally posted to Flickr as 2001-12-02 01-03 Neuseeland 375. Licenced under CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kiwi_bird_in_Christchurch,_New_Zealand,_2002-01-01.jpg#/media/File:Kiwi_bird_in_Christchurch,_New_Zealand,_2002-01-01.jpg
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