Kiwi

Kiwi are any of the three species of small flightless birds endemic to New Zealand of the genus Apteryx (the only genus in family Apterygidae). At around the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites, although in comparison to their body size their egg (weighing as much as a quarter of the adult bird's weight) is proportionately the largest of all birds. Kiwi are nocturnal and live mainly by foraging with their long beaks for earthworms and other invertebrates in leaf litter, which they find using their sense of smell, which is unusually well-developed for a bird. Unusually for a bird, their nostrls are positioned at the distal end of the beak.

All three kiwi species are much reduced in range and now protected, though the large size of their eggs does offer some protection against the depradations of rats, compared to other ground-nesting native birds such as the kakapo and takahe.

The kiwi is a national symbol of New Zealand, and the term is often used to describe a person from New Zealand.

Origins

According to the origins theory model used by creation scientists, kiwis, like all flightless non aquatic birds, originated in the Middle East and are the descendants of two kiwis that were taken onto Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood. Also according to creation science theories, after the Flood, kiwis bred from the Ark passengers migrated to New Zealand. There is some debate whether this migration happened over land -- while New Zealand was still connected to the Middle East before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart -- or if they floated there on mats of vegetation torn up by the flood waters.

Biologists maintain that the modern species of kiwi evolved from a common ancestral species over a period of millions of years