Norfolk boobook Norfolk boobook The Norfolk boobook ("Ninox novaeseelandiae undulata"), also known as the Norfolk Island boobook, Norfolk Island owl or Norfolk Island morepork, was a bird in the true owl family endemic to Norfolk Island, an Australian territory in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand. It is an extinct subspecies of the morepork ("Ninox novaeseelandiae"). However, although the taxon is extinct, its genes live on in the descendants of the hybrid offspring of the last female bird, which was sighted for the last time in 1996. The Norfolk boobook was very similar in appearance to other subspecies of the
Australasian wren Australasian wren The Australasian wrens are a family, Maluridae, of small, insectivorous passerine birds endemic to Australia and New Guinea. While commonly known as wrens, they are unrelated to the true wrens of the Northern Hemisphere. The family comprises 29 species (including fifteen fairywrens, three emu-wrens, and eleven grasswrens) in six genera. As with many other Australian creatures, and perhaps more than most, the species making up this family were comprehensively misunderstood by early researchers. They were variously classified as Old World flycatchers, Old World warblers, and Old World babblers. In the late 1960s morphological studies began to suggest that