Holocene extinction may have put some pressure on other birds but at the time of early European contact (18th Century) and colonisation (19th Century) the bird life was prolific. With them, the Europeans brought ship rats, possums, cats and mustelids which decimated native bird life, some of which had adapted flightlessness and ground nesting habits and others had no defensive behavior as a result of having no extant endemic mammalian predators. The kakapo, the world's biggest parrot, which is flightless, now only exists in managed breeding sanctuaries. New Zealand's national emblem, the kiwi, is on the endangered bird list. There has been
Glossary of bird terms this glossary does not contain individual entries on any of the approximately 9,700 recognized living individual bird species of the world. Glossary of bird terms The following is a glossary of common English language terms used in the description of birds—warm-blooded vertebrates of the class Aves, characterized by , the ability to in all but the approximately 60 extant species of flightless birds, toothless, , the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Among other details such as size, proportions and shape, terms defining bird features developed and are used