Wednesday Word: Takahē

[calzephyr]

Takahē - noun.

The takahē (Porphyrio hochstetteri) is a flightless bird from New Zealand.

Once thought to be extinct, a small population was found on New Zealand's South Island in 1948. The birds are still endangered, however.

Funnily enough, there was a North Island takahē (Porphyrio mantelli) which is extinct. It is a separate species from the its Southern cousins.

By Pseudopanax at English Wikipedia - Own work, Public Domain, Link

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

Those guys bear a remarkable resemblance to chunky landlubbing Purple Gallinules (Porphyrio martinicus, inhabiting marshes, swamps, and ponds in Florida, the Caribbean, and coastal regions of Mexico and Central America); unsurprising, since the species are related:

[calzephyr]

Birds have so many cousins there out there :-D

BTW, I don't know if you're interested in being a wordsmith, but the moderator, med_cat is back and we could always use someone on word duty :-D

[full_metal_ox]

It’s something I’d enjoy, but later, perhaps; I’m still in the process of settling in from a drastic cross-country move (down-country? The direction was north to south; I now inhabit America’s phallic gun-butt! Yay!)