Flightless bird more species of flightless birds (including the kiwi, several species of penguins, the takahe, the weka, the moa, and several other extinct species) than any other such location. One reason is that until the arrival of humans roughly a thousand years ago, there were no large land predators in New Zealand; the main predators of flightless birds were larger birds. Ratites belong to the superorder Palaeognathae birds, which include the volant tinamou, and are believed to have evolved flightlessness independently multiple times within their own group. Some birds evolved flightlessness in response to the absence of predators, for example on
Flightless cormorant the 1983 an El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) event resulted in a 50% reduction of the population to just 400 individuals. The population recovered quickly, however, and was estimated to number 900 individuals by 1999. This species inhabits the rocky shores of the volcanic islands on which it occurs. It forages in shallow coastal waters, including bays and straits. Flightless cormorants are extremely sedentary, remaining most or all of their lives, and breeding, on local stretches of coast-line several hundred metres long. Their sedentary nature is reflected in a genetic differentiation between the main colonies, and particularly between Fernandina and Isabela