“The kakapo is the world's only flightless parrot and also the heaviest living parrot, with large males weighing up to 9 pounds.”
The kakapo is the world's only flightless parrot and the heaviest, a nocturnal, moss-green bird of New Zealand forests. Males boom for mates at leks, and with only a few hundred left it is Critically Endangered.
By An Nguyen · Published · Updated
Strigops habroptilusPsittaciformesStrigopidae
Browse photographs of kakapo across habitat, behavior, anatomy, and life stages.
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Core article
A closer look at habitat, diet, behavior, reproduction, and conservation.
The kakapo (Strigops habroptilus) is a nocturnal, flightless parrot found only in New Zealand — the heaviest parrot in the world and the only one that cannot fly. It feeds on native leaves, shoots, roots, seeds, and fruit, breeds through one of the strangest mating systems of any bird, and survives today only in intensively managed, predator-free sanctuaries. Introduced mammals drove it to the brink, and it remains Critically Endangered. New Zealand's kiwi is also flightless and nocturnal, but belongs to a separate lineage rather than the parrot order.
The kakapo broke most of the parrot rulebook after evolving for millions of years with no mammal predators. Males can reach about two feet long and up to 9 pounds, far too heavy to fly — the wings are short and the breastbone lacks the deep keel that anchors flight muscles in other birds, so the kakapo uses its wings only for balance and to parachute down from branches. Its mottled moss-green plumage is superb camouflage on the forest floor, and it climbs tall podocarp trees with powerful zygodactyl feet. A ring of stiff facial feathers, like an owl's disc, funnels sound to its ears — hence the nickname "owl parrot" — and it gives off a sweet, musty odour that helps kakapo find each other but, tragically, also made them easy for introduced predators to smell out.
Kakapo once ranged across the North, South, and Stewart Islands, from subalpine scrub to the coast. Today, after devastating predation, they are functionally extinct on the mainland, and the entire surviving population lives on a few heavily monitored, predator-free island sanctuaries such as Whenua Hou (Codfish Island), Anchor Island, and Te Kakahu (Chalky Island), where strict biosecurity keeps out rats, cats, and stoats. Their preferred habitat is dense temperate rainforest dominated by rimu and other podocarps.
The kakapo is a strict herbivore with a selective, seasonal diet, using its strong curved beak to crush coarse plant matter. It eats leaves, bark, stems, roots, seeds, and fruit — chewing fibrous vegetation to squeeze out the juices and spitting out the dry remains — and depends especially on the nutritious fruit of the rimu tree. It forages methodically on foot at night, following established trackways through a large home range.
The kakapo's breeding behaviour is unique: it is the only flightless bird and the only parrot to use a "lek" system. In a breeding year, males gather at traditional display sites on prominent ridges, each digging a shallow bowl in the earth that acts as a natural amplifier. From it a male inflates a large air sac in his chest and gives a deep, low-frequency "boom" that carries for kilometres through the forest, followed by a higher "ching." A male may boom for up to eight hours a night for weeks, losing much of his body weight, and defend his bowl in fierce fights. The two calls do different jobs — the boom advertises over distance, the ching helps a nearby female home in — as explained in why kakapos boom at night.
Kakapo reproduction is among the slowest of any bird. They do not breed every year; instead breeding is triggered by the "mast" seeding of certain native trees, chiefly rimu, which happens only every two to four years, so the birds go long stretches with no reproduction at all. Females visit the leks, choose a male by his display, mate, and then raise the young entirely alone. A female lays 1 to 4 eggs in a hidden ground nest and incubates about 30 days, leaving at night to feed — which is exactly when eggs and chicks are most vulnerable. Chicks hatch helpless and grow slowly. Kakapo are remarkably long-lived, with a low metabolism; many exceed 60 years, and some are estimated at over 90.
The kakapo is Critically Endangered. By 1995 the population had crashed to just 51 birds. The causes were introduced mammalian predators (rats, cats, stoats, ferrets) against which a ground-dwelling, freeze-in-place bird had no defence, wholesale forest clearance, and — after the bottleneck — low genetic diversity that causes high infertility and hatching failure. Under New Zealand's Kakapo Recovery Programme every bird is now individually monitored, nests are guarded, and breeding is supported with supplementary feeding; the Department of Conservation reported 236 birds before the 2026 breeding season. Because the total shifts as chicks hatch and birds die, the recovery programme is the right source for the current count.
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Aves
Order
Psittaciformes
Family
Strigopidae
Genus
Strigops
Species
S. habroptilus
The kakapo is the world's only flightless parrot and also the heaviest living parrot, with large males weighing up to 9 pounds.
They are exceptionally long-lived birds, capable of reaching ages exceeding 90 years.
Instead of flying, they use their strong, muscular legs to climb high into towering canopy trees, using their short wings as parachutes to glide back down.
Kakapo possess a pleasant, musty scent often described by researchers as resembling honey and old violin case linings.
They are the only parrots in the world to utilize a lek breeding system, where males dig bowl-like hollows and inflate an air sac to produce deep booming calls that echo for kilometers.
Breeding cycles are entirely dictated by the irregular mast seeding of native podocarp trees like the rimu, which happens only every 2 to 4 years.
Select a question to reveal the answer.
The kakapo is a large, nocturnal, flightless parrot endemic to New Zealand, instantly recognizable by its heavy build and owl-like facial features.
Today, surviving kakapo populations are heavily managed and restricted to predator-free offshore island sanctuaries in New Zealand, such as Codfish Island (Whenua Hou) and Anchor Island.
They are strict herbivores whose diet consists of native seeds, leaves, roots, stems, and fruits, especially the nutritious fruit of the rimu tree during breeding years.
Evolving in an ancient New Zealand ecosystem completely free of land mammals, the kakapo had no need for flight to escape predators, gradually developing a heavy body and small wings.
The introduction of invasive predatory mammals such as stoats, cats, ferrets, and rats by human settlers devastated the defenseless ground-nesting kakapo populations.
New Zealand's Department of Conservation reported 236 kakapo before the 2026 breeding season. The total changes as chicks hatch and birds die, so the Kakapo Recovery Programme is the best source for the latest count.
Rimu fruit is a high-energy seasonal food tied to kakapo breeding. Females breed mainly during heavy rimu fruiting years, when enough food is available to raise chicks.
Kakapo need protected New Zealand forest and scrub with native food plants and no introduced mammal predators. The surviving birds are managed on offshore island sanctuaries with strict biosecurity.
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