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  Profile

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  In flight

Songbirds

ʻAkiapōlāʻau

Hemignathus wilsoni

• mythic
• 120 km/h
• Endangered

Wields two beaks in one: a chisel below, a probe above. The Swiss Army knife of Hawaiian couriers.

Population

~1,900 individuals (~1,300 mature), decreasing (2009 estimate cited by BirdLife/IUCN)

Habitat

Old-growth mesic and wet koa and ʻōhiʻa forest between roughly 1,300–2,100 m elevation

Fun fact

The ʻakiapōlāʻau has a strikingly asymmetrical bill — a short, straight lower mandible used to hammer and crush bark woodpecker-style, paired with a long, curved upper mandible used to probe and hook insects out of the holes it makes — letting it fill Hawaiʻi's woodpecker niche even though true woodpeckers never reached the islands.

Range

Endemic to the island of Hawaiʻi (the Big Island) only, restricted to two disjunct subpopulations (Hāmākua/Hilo and Kaʻū); formerly more widespread, extirpated from Mauna Kea and likely Kona

Diet

Primarily lepidopteran and cerambycid beetle larvae excavated from bark and wood using its unique bill, plus tree sap (fed on year-round) and some nectar

Size

0.14 m