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Note: The extinct huia bird was a striking, large songbird native to the North Island of New Zealand, with deep metallic, bluish-black plumage, orange wattles and long white-tipped tail feathers.  The female and male Huia had dramatically different bill sizes and shapes; the female beak being long, slender and curved while the male beak was stouter and shorter.  The male used its shorter bill as an axe to dig into decaying wood to extract huhu larvae as well as other insects, while the female with its longer decurved bill could extract larvae from more solid wood. 

The huia bird was already a rare species before the arrival of Europeans to New Zealand.  They were a sacred bird to the Māori, who prized the tail feathers and wore them as a mark of status.  Often worn in the hair by Māori of rank, the twelve unique black and white-tipped tail feathers of the huia represented chieftainship (Rangatiratanga). The feathers were also gifted or traded between iwi (people) for other taonga (treasures) to create and maintain important tribal relationships.  They were similarly given to non-Māori as a sign of respect and acknowledgement.  Furthermore, the tail plumes became fashionable in Britain after the Duke of York was photographed wearing one during a 1901 visit to New Zealand which sparked a dramatic rise in the capture and hunting of the species.

The logging and burning of native forests by European settlers in the nineteenth century to make way for farming in the lowlands of the North Island was also a major contributing factor to the decline in population and ultimate extinction of huia birds.

The last accepted sighting was in 1907, but it is likely that a few huia birds persisted as late as the 1920s.