Hawaii

The bird uses the whole body.

Reuters, Thursday: the ʻakiapōlāʻau hacks with the lower bill and probes with the upper one. The paper is Nov. 5. The bird in the photograph is from 2022.

The Rocket News · Science Desk · HawaiiNovember 8, 2026 · 3 min read

An ʻakiapōlāʻau, close, the long upper bill curved, in Puʻu Makaʻala Natural Area Reserve, Hawaii, Sept. 3, 2022. Bret Nainoa Mossman, handout via Reuters. It is the bird. It is not Thursday.

Reuters reported Nov. 5 that the ʻakiapōlāʻau, an endangered Hawaiian honeycreeper, has no need for a toolbox. It taps the wood, hacks into it with the lower half of the beak, then switches to the long upper bill to probe for insect larvae. The new research, Reuters said, is the most complete look yet at the anatomy, and the legs join the strike. The bird lives only on the island of Hawaii. It behaves like a woodpecker. It is not closely related to one.

Alexander Clark, a University of Chicago doctoral candidate and a scientific affiliate of the Field Museum, is the lead author of the study in the journal Ornithology. “The anatomy of an animal is like the book, whereas the in-life behavior is like the movie,” he told Reuters. The bird sometimes taps a branch with the upper bill, looking for a hollow. Then it opens the mouth wide and gouges with the lower bill only, holding the upper bill as far away as it can. The journal date is Nov. 5, 2026. The wire date is the same day.

The anatomy of an animal is like the book, whereas the in-life behavior is like the movie

The photograph is the bird, not a drawing. Sept. 3, 2022, Puʻu Makaʻala Natural Area Reserve, Hawaii. The upper bill is the long curve. Bret Nainoa Mossman, handout via Reuters. It is not Thursday.

Wire and further reading: reuters.com

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