Black robin
Appearance
Black Robin Template:StatusEndangered | ||||||||||||||
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Binomial name | ||||||||||||||
Petroica traversi (Buller, 1872) |
The Black Robin or Chatham Island Robin is an endangered bird from the Chatham Islands off the east coast of New Zealand. It is closely related to the New Zealand Robin.
Petroica traversi is a sparrow-sized bird. Its plumage is almost entirely brownish-black, unlike its mainland counterparts. In the early 1980s only five Black Robins survived but were saved from extinction by Don Merton and his team, and by "Old blue", the last remaining female, which literally became the mother of the species. The species is still endangered, but now numbers around 250 individuals. Template:Kiwi-stub