Apteryx australis
The southern brown kiwi, tokoeka, or common kiwi is a species of kiwi from South Island of New Zealand. Until 2000 it was considered conspecific with the North Island brown kiwi, and still is by some authorities.

Glen Fergus · CC BY-SA 2.5 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Also called
- Southern brown kiwiPBDB
- Sits inside
- ApteryxPBDB
- Diet
- carnivorePBDB, for Coelurosauria
- Life habit
- ground dwelling, solitaryPBDB, for Theropoda
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Theropoda
- Mass
- 2.54 kgWikidata
Time the record covers
At most 129 thousand years on record.
Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.
12 occurrences of Apteryx australis on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
12 occurrences- Pleistocene17%
- Holocene83%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Found in
1 formation
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Apteryx australis has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 10 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Apteryx australis and its relatives
HoloceneWhere Apteryx australis and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.
Found in the same rock
132 taxa- Emeus crassus9 sites
- Gallirallus australis9 sites
- Chenonetta finschi8 sites
- Pachyornis elephantopus8 sites
- Anas chlorotis7 sites
- Corvus moriorum7 sites
- Coturnix novaezelandiae7 sites
- Fulica prisca7 sites
- Harpagornis moorei7 sites
- Nestor meridionalis7 sites
- Ardenna grisea6 sites
- Callaeas cinereus6 sites
- Cnemiornis calcitrans6 sites
- Eudyptula minor6 sites
- Haematopus unicolor6 sites
- Phalacrocorax carunculatus6 sites
- Phalacrocorax punctatus6 sites
- Circus eylesi5 sites
- Cyanoramphus5 sites
- Dinornis giganteus5 sites
- Eudyptes pachyrhynchus5 sites
- Euryapteryx geranoides5 sites
- Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae5 sites
- Larus dominicanus5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 12 sites for Apteryx australis, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
4 references- Quaternary fossil fauna of South Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand6
- A remarkable fossil and archaeological avifauna from Marfells Beach, Lake Grassmere, South Island, New Zealand3
- Late-Pleistocene avifaunas from Cape Wanbrow, Otago, South Island, New Zealand2
- Fossils indicate Pelecanoides georgicus had large colonies at Mason Bay, Stewart Island, New Zealand1
Each of the 12 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content3
Picture of Apteryx australis
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Glen Fergus
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 2.5
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
CT scan
- Source
- MorphoSource
- Credit
- NMNH - Division of Birds
- Licence
- In Copyright
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
- Specimen
- Apteryx australis mantelli · USNM:BIRDS:USNM 18278
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution-NonCommercial
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itApteryx through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Shaw 1813