What Is a Huia Bird?

The huia was a magpie-sized glossy black bird. In fresh plumage, the black feathers had a green and bluish-purple metallic sheen. The long black tail feathers had 2-3 cm white-tips, forming a bold white band across the tail-tip. The bill was pale ivory grading to bluish-grey at the base, and yellow at the gape.

When was the huia declared extinct?

The Huia is a bird of great cultural importance to the Maori, New Zealand's indigenous population. They prized the bird for its large, white-tipped, black tail feathers. Due to a European fashion craze, the bird was declared extinct in the 1920s.

What does huia mean Māori?

: a bird (Neomorpha acutirostris or Heteralocha acutirostris) related to the starlings, confined to a small region in the mountains of New Zealand, and having black white-tipped tail feathers prized by Maori chiefs and worn as insignia of rank.