Kakapo became isolated from the remaining parrot species when New Zealand broke off from Gondwana, around 82 million years ago. Around 30 million years ago, the kakapo diverged from the genus "Nestor". Earlier ornithologists felt that the kakapo might be related to the ground parrots and night parrot of Australia due to their similar coloration, but this is contradicted by recent studies; rather, the cryptic colour seems to be adaptation to terrestrial habits that evolved twice convergently. The kakapo is a large, rotund parrot; the adult can measure from in length, and weight can vary from at maturity. Males are larger
Flightless bird oceanic islands. Incongruences between ratite phylogeny and Gondwana geological history indicate the presence of ratites in their current locations is the result of a secondary invasion by flying birds. It remains possible that the most recent common ancestor of ratites was flightless and the tinamou regained the ability to fly However, it is believed that the loss of flight is an easier transition for birds rather than the loss and regain of flight, which has never been documented in avian history. Moreover, tinamou nesting within flightless ratites indicates ancestral ratites were volant and multiple losses of flight occurred independently throughout