Actinidia deliciosa Zealand, around 1924. This is the most widely grown cultivar in the world. Chinese gooseberry was initially grown in domestic gardens, but commercial planting began in the 1940s. In 1959, Turners and Growers named it kiwifruit, after New Zealand's national bird, the kiwi—brown and furry. , Italy was the leading producer of kiwifruit in the world, followed by New Zealand, Chile, France, Greece, Japan, and the United States. Kiwifruit is still produced in China, but China has never made it to the top 10 list of kiwifruit-producing countries. In China, it is grown mainly in the mountainous area upstream of
Great spotted kiwi Apteryx, is endemic to New Zealand, 44% of the bird species native to New Zealand are endemic. Kiwis are placed in the ratite family, which also includes the emu, ostrich, rhea, and cassowary. All ratites are flightless. While it was long presumed that Kiwi were closely related to the extinct moa bird that once inhabited New Zealand, recent DNA research identified the extinct elephant bird of Madagascar as the Kiwi's closest relative. Additionally, the kiwi is more closely related to the emu and the cassowaries than to the moa. Before the great spotted kiwi was known to science, several stories