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
New Guinea flightless rail and diverged strongly in some aspects, while otherwise adapting in similar ways. New Guinea flightless rail The New Guinea flightless rail ("Megacrex inepta"), also known as the Papuan flightless rail, is a species of bird in the family Rallidae, in the monotypic genus "Megacrex". Sometimes however, it was included in "Amaurornis" or "Habroptila", but this is incorrect. It is found in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, subtropical or tropical mangrove forests, and subtropical or tropical swamps. It is threatened by habitat loss. "M. inepta" is indeed closely related to "Amaurornis",