Black Stilt
Himantopus novaezelandiae
- Family
- Stilts and Avocets (Recurvirostridae)
- Order
- Charadriiformes
Overview
The black stilt or kakī (Māori), (Himantopus novaezelandiae) is a wading bird found in New Zealand. It is one of the world's rarest birds, with 169 adults surviving in the wild as of May 2020. Adult kakī have distinctive black plumage, long pink legs, and a long thin black bill. Black stilts largely breed in the Mackenzie Basin in the South Island, and are threatened by introduced feral cats, ferrets, and hedgehogs as well as habitat degradation from hydroelectric dams, agriculture, and invasive weeds.
Summary from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Range and habitat
MacKenzie Basin (central South Island, New Zealand); winters to North Island.
Range description: AviList Global Avian Checklist.
Continents
Countries
Sources and further reading
- Wikipedia: Black stilt
- eBird: sightings, maps and photos
- xeno-canto: sound recordings
- Birds of the World: full species account (subscription)
- BirdLife DataZone: status and threats
- IUCN Red List (threat status)
- AviList global checklist (taxonomy)
Last updated September 29, 2026.
