Falco novaeseelandiae

The New Zealand falcon is New Zealand's only falcon, and one of only four living native and two endemic birds of prey. It is frequently mistaken for the larger and more common swamp harrier. It is the country's most threatened bird of prey, with only around 5000–15000 individuals remaining. Under the New Zealand Threat Classification System the falcon is stable at Threatened, with conservation research needed. The kārearea was voted Bird of the Year winner in the annual Forest & Bird competition in 2012 and again in 2025.

Falco novaeseelandiae

Tony Wills · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
New Zealand falconPBDB
Sits inside
FalcoPBDB
Diet
carnivorePBDB, for Falconidae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Falconidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Theropoda
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Falconidae
Mass
531 gWikidata

Time the record covers

At most 129 thousand years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 129 ka and 0 Mya, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Pleistocene — about 1 of 6 occurrencesPleistoceneHolocene — about 5 of 6 occurrences147 ka–126 ka Mya — about 0.0 occurrences126 ka–105 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences105 ka–84 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences84 ka–63 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences63 ka–42 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences42 ka–21 ka Mya — about 0.2 occurrences21 ka–0 Mya — about 5 occurrences629 ka0 Mya

6 occurrences of Falco novaeseelandiae on record, most of them in the Holocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

6 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

1 formation

Hillgrove — 45.13°S, 170.97°E

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The named rock units Falco novaeseelandiae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Falco novaeseelandiae and its relatives

Holocene

Where Falco novaeseelandiae and its relatives were recorded in the Holocene.

Found in the same rock

155 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 6 sites for Falco novaeseelandiae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

4 references

Each of the 6 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content2

Picture of Falco novaeseelandiae

Credit
Tony Wills
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itFalco through timeFormations of the HoloceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gmelin 1788