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It also has a highly developed sense of smell. The kiwi is the only bird in the world that has nostrils at the tip of its bill. Sadly, kiwis suffer from a 95 percent chick mortality rate. However, their casual “sleeping burrow” has a noticeable dirt arrow pointing right to it, as the kiwis fling the dirt behind them while making the opening! Because they did not evolve with any mammal predators around, kiwis lack the appropriate anti-mammal predatory response kiwi chicks are vulnerable to nonnative predators like domestic cats and dogs, as well as stoats, weasels, ferrets, and rats. Kiwis evolved sharing their habitat with another bird, the weka, that eats their eggs, so they had to get “sneaky” in hiding their burrows. If the coast is clear, the bird cautiously emerges to begin a nightly routine of gorging on worms and other invertebrates. Still, the kiwi usually rests in deep underground burrows or hollow logs during the day, and as night begins to fall, it slowly pokes its bill out to sniff the air. But conservation scientists studying the bird on New Zealand's Stewart Island have seen them out and about during the day. Most birds sleep at night, and it has long been thought that the kiwi is nocturnal, since it is rarely seen during the day. Nest burrows, dug early in the season, become overgrown at the entrance to provide great camouflage by the time the female is ready to lay her eggs. The bird digs multiple burrows within its territory, using strong toes and claws. Since it is not able to fly up into trees to nest, rest, or escape from danger, the kiwi makes its home in burrows in the ground of its swampy forest or grassland habitat. The kiwi lives in forested areas of New Zealand that tend to be very steep and wet, surrounded by shrubs and trees found nowhere else on Earth. The kiwi also has a relatively low body temperature (100 degrees Fahrenheit or 38 degrees Celsius) that is much more like a mammal than a bird. Its feathers are long, loose, and hair-like, and it has modified feathers that serve as whiskers on its face and around the base of its beak. The kiwi digs burrows instead of building a nest. Its wings have a cat-like claw on the tip, like some bats’ wings have, but it is nonfunctional.
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#KEYWE COST SKIN#
While most birds have thin skin and hollow bones to make them lighter for flying, the kiwi's skin is a bit thicker and tough, and its bones are heavy and filled with marrow. Looking quite different from any other bird, the kiwi has many body parts that make it seem more like a mammal.
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Despite its small size and awkward appearance, the kiwi can outrun a human and is quite wary. Four toes (other ratites have only two or three) on each thick foot allow the flightless bird to pad silently through the forest in search of food. The kiwi has no tail but does have very strong, muscular legs, which make up about a third of the bird’s total body weight, that are used for running and fighting. Regardless of what it’s related to, this odd-looking bird resembles a large, hairy pear! Its wings are only about 1 inch (3 centimeters) long and are useless, completely hidden under the feathers.
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However, recent genetic studies have shown that Africa's ostrich is related to the moa while the kiwi is more closely related to Madagascar's extinct elephant bird. Scientists thought for many years that the kiwi's closest relative was another ratite called a moa, an extinct bird that was also native to New Zealand. Most birds have a special ridge on their sternum, called a keel, where flight muscles attach, but ratites don't need keels because they don't fly. Like its larger cousins the cassowary, emu, ostrich, and rhea, the kiwi is classified as a ratite. But the kiwi is not a fruit-that's kiwifruit, which is native to eastern Asia! About the size of a chicken, the kiwi is a small, flightless, and nearly wingless bird found only in New Zealand. The word "kiwi" often brings to mind the image of something small, brown, fuzzy, and found in the produce section of your local supermarket.