Nestor chathamensis Wood et al., 2014

Chatham Islands kaka, Chatham Island kaka

Taxonomy & Nomenclature

A complete synonymy taken from (Checklist Committee (OSNZ), 2022:195):

Nestor notabilis Gould; Forbes 1892, Trans. N.Z. Inst. 24: 189. In part.; Nestor meridionalis (Gmelin); Forbes, 1893: Ibis 5 (6th series): 544. In part.; Nestor meridionalis (Gmelin); Dawson 1959, Notornis 8: 114. In part.; Nestor ?n. sp. Tennyson & Millener 1994: Notornis 41 (supp.): 165.; Kaka (?sp.n.) Tennyson & Millener 1994: Notornis 41 (supp.): 172.; Nestor spp. Millener 1999: Smithsonian Contrib. Paleobiology 89: 97.; Nestor “Chatham Islands” Holdaway et al. 2001: New Zealand Journ. Zool. 28: 135.; Nestor chathamensis Wood, Mitchell, Scofield & Tennyson, 2014: Zool. Journ. Linn. Soc. 172: 191 – Chatham Island.

Conservation Status

Extinct

Last record: Holocene

Distribution & Habitat

Chatham Islands, New Zealand

Biology & Ecology

Hypodigm

Media

References

Original scientific description:

Wood, J. R., Mitchell, K. J., Scofield, R. P., Tennyson, A. J. D., Fidler, A. E., Wilmshurst, J. M., Llamas, B. and Cooper, A. (2014). An extinct nestorine parrot (Aves, Psittaciformes, Strigopidae, Nestorinae) from the Chatham Islands, New Zealand. Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 172(1): 185-199. [Abstract]

Other references:

Checklist Committee (OSNZ). (2022). Checklist of the Birds of New Zealand (5th edition). Ornithological Society of New Zealand Occasional Publication No. 1. Wellington: Ornithological Society of New Zealand. [p. 195]

Dawson, E. W. (1952). Subfossil Nestor (Psittacida) from New Zealand. Emu 52(4): 259 -272.

Dawson, Elliott W. (1959). The supposed occurrence of Kakapo, Kaka and Kea in the Chatham Islands. Notornis 8(4): 106-115.

Faurby, Søren, Matthews, Tom J., Triantis, Kostas A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2026). Quantifying the unrecorded loss of avian phylogenetic diversity. Ecography 2026: e08267. https://doi.org/10.1002/ecog.08267

Forbes, H. O. (1892a). Interview with H. O. Forbes: Mr. Forbes' discovery. The Christchurch Press 49(8132): 5-6. 

Forbes, H. O. (1892b). [i]Aphanapteryx[/i] and other remains in the Chatham Islands. Nature 46: 252-253.

Forbes, H. O. (1892c). Preliminary notice of additions to the extinct avifauna of New Zealand. Trans. N.Z. Inst., 24: 185-189

Forbes, H. O. (1893). A list of the birds inhabiting the Chatham Islands. Ibis, ser. 6, 5: 521-546.

Holdaway, Richard N., Worthy, Trevor H. and Tennyson, Alan J. D. (2001). A working list of breeding bird species of the New Zealand region at first human contact. New Zealand Journal of Zoology 28: 119-187.

Hume, Julian Pender and Walters, Michael. (2012). Extinct Birds. London: T & AD Poyser. 544 pp.

Matthews, Thomas J., Triantis, Kostas A., Wayman, Joseph P., Martin, Thomas E., Hume, Julian P., Cardoso, Pedro, Faurby, Søren, Mendenhall, Chase D., Dufour, Paul, Rigal, François, Cooke, Rob, Whittaker, Robert J., Pigot, Alex L., Thébaud, Christophe, Jørgensen, Maria Wagner, Benavides, Eva, Soares, Filipa C., Ulrich, Werner, Kubota, Yasuhiro, Sadler, Jon P., Tobias, Joseph A. and Sayol, Ferran. (2024). The global loss of avian functional and phylogenetic diversity from anthropogenic extinctions. Science 386(6717): 55-60. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adk7898 [Supplementary Materials; Dryad dataset; Zenodo codeset]

Matthews, Thomas J., Wayman, Joseph P., Cardoso, Pedro, Sayol, Ferran, Hume, Julian P., Ulrich, Werner, Tobias, Joseph A., Soares, Filipa C., Thébaud, Christophe, Martin, Thomas E. and Triantis, Kostas A. (2022). Threatened and extinct island endemic birds of the world: Distribution, threats and functional diversity. Journal of Biogeography 49(11): 1920-1940. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14474 [Appendix S1 (.docx); Appendix S2 (.pdf)]

Millener, P. R. (1996). Extinct birds, pp. 113-120. In: Anonymous (ed.). The Chatham Islands: heritage and conservation. Christchurch, Canterbury University Press and Department of Conservation.

Millener, P. R. (1999). The history of the Chatham Islands’ bird fauna of the last 7000 years – a chronicle of change and extinction. Proceedings of the 4th International meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution (Washington, D.C., June 1996). Smithsonian Contributions to Paleobiology 89: 85-109.

Miskelly, Colin M., Forsdick, Natalie J., Gill, Brian J., Palma, Ricardo L., Rawlence, Nicolas J. and Tennyson, Alan J. D. (2022). Amendments to the 2010 Checklist of the birds of New Zealand. Ornithological Society of New Zealand Occasional Publication No. 2. Wellington: Ornithological Society of New Zealand.

Robertson, H. A., Baird, K. A., Elliott, G. P., Hitchmough, R. A., McArthur, N. J., Makan, T. D., Miskelly, Colin M., O’Donnell, C. F. J., Sagar, P. M., Scofield, R. P., Taylor, G. A. and Michel, P. (2021). Conservation status of birds in Aotearoa New Zealand, 2021. New Zealand Threat Classification Series 36. Department of Conservation, Wellington. 43 pp.

Sayol, Ferran, Steinbauer, Manuel J., Blackburn, Tim M.,  Antonelli, Alexandre and Faurby, Søren. (2020). Anthropogenic extinctions conceal widespread evolution of flightlessness in birds. Science Advances 6(49): eabb6095. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb6095 [Supplementary Material (Data File S1)]

Tennyson, A. J. D. and Millener, P. R. (1994). Bird extinctions and fossil bones from Mangere Island, Chatham Islands. Notornis (supplement) 41: 165-178.

Tyrberg, Tommy. (2009). Holocene avian extinctions, pp. 63-106. In: Turvey, Samuel T. (ed.). Holocene Extinctions. Oxford, UK & New York, USA: Oxford University Press. xii + 352 pp.

http://www.osnz.org.nz/sites/osnz.org.nz/files/publications/2014%20Abstracts.pdf

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