bioephemera

I saw this too, via twitter, so the video is going around. I hope the series comes to the US soon. Meanwhile, in writing up my own blog post about this, I stumbled upon a video of a lecture Douglas Adams gave where he talks about his experience writing this book, and shares many wonderful stories about the oddities of animal behavior and evolution. I've got it posted over on Reconciliation Ecology should you wish to check it out also! Its an hour (and a bit) well spent with a favorite author.

Posted by: Madhu | October 3, 2009 9:45 PM

I hope this brings more attention to the Kakapo. They have the adorable face to be a popular endangered species and hopefully this will lead to more donations towards conservation efforts. Wishful thinking, but hey if penguins can become so popular, why not kakapos? Many people keep budgies, maybe they'll relate?

Posted by: Erin | October 4, 2009 4:36 AM

No they don't have any natural predators Noam GR. Birds were the dominant species in New Zealand until the Maori arrived around 1100, I think. Since then, around 80% of the native bird life has been wiped out. Very sad. The only native mammal is a Bat and there has been a mouse fossil found I believe. Today, thanks to the human interference, rats, possums, deer, pigs and a whole bunch of other introduced species (including birds) are wiping out New Zealands native bird population. :(

Posted by: JerryNZ | October 4, 2009 7:34 PM

actually, you have it backwards: it displays this behavior BECAUSE it is so rare. Reports exist of a solitary male kakapo going through his booming and bellowing lekking behavior every year, to an utterly empty auditorium of verdant hills. That might drive any bachelor mad.

Posted by: ad | October 6, 2009 2:55 AM

ad,

I'm not a zoologist, but 'm skeptical that the Haast's Eagle or even the harriers preyed on kakapos. Kakapos are forest floor birds. I would have thought eagles & hawks mostly prey animals/birds in more open settings. Just for those outside NZ: NZ forests are (were) very dense, more like a subtropical jungle than most northern hemisphere forests. The idea of an aerial "attack" to the forest floor seems unlikely to me, not that I know much about zoology, it just strikes me as unlikely. If they preyed on birds, I would have picked ratites that live in more open ground, e.g. smaller moa, the predecessors of the weka, etc. as more likely prey.

Posted by: BioinfoTools | October 6, 2009 4:15 PM

@12- actually you are probably right, the Haast's eagle and harriers were diurnal and kakapo is nocturnal. A more likely predator is the now extinct Laughing Owl, which indeed produced owl pellets with kakapo remains. Also speculating that wekas themselves might have preyed on chicks.
Nonetheless Haast's Eagle was adapted to working in forests, it had a smaller wingspan proportionally than the soaring sea eagles like the Steller or Golden although still bigger absolute size. Most of New Zealand was forested before humans arrived, cept for alpine areas and perhaps dry areas like Marlborough (?)

Posted by: ad | October 9, 2009 1:41 PM