Kakapo Kakapo The kakapo (Māori: kākāpō) or "night parrot", also called owl parrot ("Strigops habroptilus"), is a species of large, flightless, nocturnal, ground-dwelling parrot of the super-family Strigopoidea, endemic to New Zealand. It has finely blotched yellow-green plumage, a distinct facial disc, a large grey beak, short legs, large feet, and relatively short wings and tail. A combination of traits make it unique among its kind; it is the world's only flightless parrot, the heaviest parrot, nocturnal, herbivorous, visibly sexually dimorphic in body size, has a low basal metabolic rate and no male parental care, and is the only parrot to
Kakapo non-dispersive sex when food is plentiful. A female kakapo will likely be able to produce eggs even when there are few resources, while a male kakapo will be more capable of perpetuating the species when there are plenty, by mating with several females. This supports the Trivers–Willard hypothesis. The relationship between clutch sex ratio and maternal diet has conservation implications, because a captive population maintained on a high quality diet will produce fewer females and therefore fewer individuals valuable to the recovery of the species. The beak of the kakapo is adapted for grinding food finely. For this reason, the