The New Zealand quail (Coturnix novaezelandiae), or koreke in
Māori, is an
extinctquail species
endemic to
New Zealand. The male and female were similar, except the female was lighter. The first scientist to describe it was
Sir Joseph Banks when he visited New Zealand on
James Cook's first voyage. Terrestrial and temperate, this species inhabited lowland tussock grassland and open fernlands.[3] The first specimen to be obtained by a European was collected in 1827 by
Jean René Constant Quoy and
Joseph Paul Gaimard on
Dumont D'Urville's voyage. It most likely went extinct due to diseases from introduced game birds.
Taxonomy
Research was conducted between 2007 and 2009 into whether the quails on
Tiritiri Matangi Island – which was spared the worst impact of
introduced predators – might be a surviving population of this species, or koreke-
brown quail (Synoicus ypsilophora)
hybrids.[4] However, a genetic study showed instead that the quail on Tiritiri Matangi are brown quail.[5] Sequences were derived for all quail species within the Australian and New Zealand Coturnix sp. complex.[6]
It has sometimes been considered
conspecific with the
Australianstubble quail (Coturnix pectoralis), which would then be named Coturnix novaezelandiae pectoralis as the New Zealand bird was described first. However, the genetic analysis showed that they are separate though closely related species.[7]
Gallery
Illustration
Illustration of the
Chatham rail and the New Zealand quail from 1907
^Seabrook-Davison, M.; Huynen, L.; Lambert, D.M.; and Brunton D.H. (2009). Ancient DNA Resolves Identity and Phylogeny of New Zealand's Extinct and Living Quail (Coturnix sp.). PLoS ONE 4(7), e6400.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0006400 A neighbour-joining phylogenetic distance tree was constructed in PAUP4 with 1000 bootstrap replications to determine the strength of groupings. The sequences used for the tree were derived from 3 separate mitochondrial control region sequences.
^Seabrook-Davison, M.; Huynen, L.; Lambert, D.M.; and Brunton D.H. (2009). Ancient DNA Resolves Identity and Phylogeny of New Zealand's Extinct and Living Quail (Coturnix sp.). PLoS ONE 4(7), e6400.
doi:
10.1371/journal.pone.0006400.