Huia

The huia was an iconic songbird and a taonga for Māori, with glossy black plumage, an orange wattle and prized white-tipped tailfeathers. Males had a short, crow-esque beak, while the female's beak was long and arched. Huia were present in the North Island, and both introduced predators and human hunting contributed to their extinction. The last official huia sighting was in 1907 in the Tararua Ranges, but a few likely survived into the 1920s.