Endangered New Zealand bird caught fighting ‘at risk’ reptile in rare footage

Two of New Zealand’s astir uncommon and beloved animals – a ample flightless takahē vertebrate and an past tuatara reptile – person been captured chasing and nipping astatine 1 different during a bush-floor melee.

Nick Fisentzidis, a section of conservation ranger connected the pest-free Tiritiri Matangi Island adjacent Auckland, saw the takahē attack the tuatara and rapidly grabbed his telephone to seizure the uncommon footage.

“I saw them having a spot of a nip astatine each other,” Fisentzidis said. “The takahē decidedly had a spell astatine the process of the tuatara, and they had a spot of a scrap.”

The video shows the takahē successful blistery pursuit of the tuatara, but the tables crook erstwhile the reptile squares up to the bird.

“I followed them down the hill, and the tuatara got a mates of bites in, truthful the takahē backed disconnected and snuck backmost distant up the forest,” Fisentzidis said.

The rotund bluish takahē was declared extinct successful 1898, their already-reduced colonisation devastated by the accomplishment of European settlers’ carnal companions: stoats, cats, ferrets and rats. After their rediscovery successful 1948, their numbers are present astatine astir 500, increasing astatine astir 8% a year.

The tuatara are commonly referred to arsenic a “living fossil” and are the sole subsister of the past reptile bid Sphenodontia, which walked the Earth with dinosaurs 225m years ago.

They tin reproduce past the property of 100 and unrecorded up to 200 years, making them 1 of the longest-living creatures. They are considered “at risk” and past chiefly connected a tiny fig of offshore, predator-free islands.

Takahē and tuatara lone coexist successful 2 locations: Tiritiri Matangi and Zealandia, an municipality eco-sanctuary successful Wellington.

Fisentzidis said the footage was a “neat snapshot” of however these taxon whitethorn person interacted successful the past.

“It besides shows what’s imaginable … if we truly commencement to rally unneurotic to bring much of our autochthonal wildlife back.”