Kiwi Bird Same Name as Kiwi Fruit

What bird has the same name of a fruit?

That's right. The kiwi. You probably saw the answer in the title of this article.

The kiwi bird is a flightless bird of New Zealand. The brown kiwi bird is small, brown, and feathery. The kiwi fruit is a small, brown, and fuzzy fruit.

The kiwi fruit has green flesh with tiny, black, edible seeds.

The kiwi bird is about the size of chicken. Since the kiwi can not fly, they can lay large eggs. They don't have to carry the eggs with them during flight. They lay the largest bird egg relative to its size. Their eggs are about six time bigger than you supermarket eggs and certainly larger than a kiwi fruit. The egg weighs one pound and can be 3 inches long. The bird itself weighs 1.5 to 5.5 pounds depending on the species. So the egg can be 15 to 20 percent of the body mass of a female kiwi. The female kiwi can lay about 100 of these eggs in her lifetime. Ouch. Their lifespan is 30 to 40 years.

All five species of kiwi birds are endangered: the Great Spotted Kiwi, the Little Spotted Kiwi, the Rowi, the Tokoeka, and the North Island Brown Kiwi.

The kiwi bird is the national symbol for New Zealand. The birds are more active at night. They are very shy birds and are easily startled. In fact, some zoos that hold them in captivity will not let visitor take pictures of them for fear that the flash of the camera will frighten the bird into a hysterical frenzy.

The kiwi is the only bird that has nostrils at the tip of its bill. Their good sense of smell helps them find food which consists of grubs, worms, bugs, berries, and seeds