Māori names for native birds and animals

These are the Māori names for native birds and animals of Aotearoa New Zealand, with how to say each one, what many of the names mean, and which of the birds are found nowhere else or are threatened. Many are already the everyday English names: kiwi, tūī, kererū, kea, kākāpō, takahē, tuatara and wētā. The Māori word for a bird is manu, and for an animal, especially one with four legs, kararehe. The bird table comes first, then the other native animals, the farm animals and pets, and a handful of sentences for the classroom.

Updated 17 October 2026 · 7 min read

Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Māori examples play Papa Reo, the te reo Māori voice made by Te Hiku Media from recordings of native speakers.

Native birds: the Māori names

In the “Say it” column a syllable in capitals has a long vowel, the one marked with a macron, held about twice as long as a short one. The Māori r is a light tap of the tongue, and every vowel is said, so toroa has three syllables. The sounds are set out in the Māori pronunciation guide.

Several birds have more than one Māori name. Te Aka Māori Dictionary gives kōkō for the tūī and kūkū for the kererū, and Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, says the fantail has 20 or 30 Māori names, among them pīwakawaka and tīwaiwaka. Kākā is also the general word for a parrot.

Tūī or tui? Macrons and plurals in English

In English these names are often written with their macrons now, as in Māori. The Department of Conservation writes tūī, kākāpō and takahē, and NZ Birds Online heads its pages Tūī and Kākāpō, with the unmarked spelling given beside. The macron is part of the word, not decoration: hoiho is the yellow-eyed penguin, and hōiho, with a long first vowel, is a horse.

In English the names take no -s: one kiwi, three kiwi; a flock of kererū. Te reo does the same, marking the plural on the word for the instead: te kiwi ‘the kiwi’, ngā kiwi ‘the kiwi, more than one’. Why New Zealand English dropped the -s is explained in Māori words in New Zealand English.

What the bird names mean

Te Ara notes that Māori often named birds after their call, their feathers or the way they behave. These are the ones the sources explain:

• Kea: the name sounds like the bird’s call, which Te Ara writes keee aaa.
• Ruru: Te Ara says the owl’s mournful cry is echoed by its name. The English name, morepork, imitates the same call.
• Huia: NZ Birds Online says Māori named the bird after its loud distress call, a whistle rendered uia, uia, uia.
• Whio: the word means whistle, and the blue duck is named after the male’s call.
• Tīeke: the name sounds like the saddleback’s call when it is disturbed.
• Hoiho comes from the yellow-eyed penguin’s call, and kororā is probably a rendition of one of the little penguin’s calls.
• Kiwi: Te Ara gives two explanations. The male’s shrill whistle sounded like kiwi; or the name was carried from the Polynesian homeland, where kivi is the bristle-thighed curlew.
• Hihi means rays of the sun, after the male stitchbird’s yellow breast.
• Kākāriki is kākā ‘parrot’ plus riki ‘little’: a little parrot. It is also the Māori word for green, which is in Māori colours.
• Tokoeka, the South Island brown kiwi, means weka with a walking stick in the Department of Conservation’s account, from Ngāi Tahu.

Birds also gave Māori a stock of sayings. A talkative person is he kākā waha nui ‘a big-mouthed kākā’, because of the kākā’s loud, harsh call, and a distinguished visitor seen only rarely is he kōtuku rerenga tahi ‘a white heron of a single flight’. The proverbs in which the tūī chatters, the kākā cackles and the kererū coos, and the bird that feeds on the miro berry, are explained in whakataukī: Māori proverbs.

Which birds are found only in New Zealand, and which are threatened

An endemic bird breeds nowhere else in the world; a native one arrived on its own and lives in other countries too. The status is the New Zealand Threat Classification System’s, as given by NZ Birds Online: Threatened covers Nationally Critical, Nationally Endangered, Nationally Vulnerable and Nationally Increasing; At Risk covers declining, recovering and naturally small populations.

A few figures from the Department of Conservation: there are about 70,000 kiwi, in five species, and unmanaged populations lose about 2% a year; 325 kākāpō are alive, all of them on protected offshore islands or in a fenced sanctuary; and there were about 500 takahē in October 2023. Te Aka describes the kea as living mainly in the alpine regions of the South Island.

Two birds on the list are gone. NZ Birds Online gives the last accepted sighting of a huia as 1907. The moa, nine species of large flightless birds by the count accepted since 2009, became extinct less than 600 years ago, according to Te Ara. The Māori sentence for both is Kua ngaro te huia. ‘The huia is extinct.’: Te Aka gives ngaro as missing, lost, gone or extinct.

Other native animals

The Māori categories are drawn differently from the English ones. Te Aka defines manu as any winged creature, bats and butterflies included, and ika as anything that swims, so a whale is an ika. Several of these were food, and the food words, from tuna to kōura, are in Māori food words.

Farm animals and pets

What these animals say in Māori, and in eight other languages, is in animal sounds in different languages.

Sentences for the classroom

A picture of a bird and a handful of patterns are enough for a lesson. There is no word for is; he means a, and tēnei means this.

The bird’s name never changes; only te becomes ngā for more than one. A class can sort pictures into manu, ika and kararehe, or into birds that fly and birds that do not, which in New Zealand is a long list: the kiwi, kākāpō, takahē and weka are all flightless. More ideas are in Māori for kids and te reo for teachers, and Verbavia’s te reo Māori course (our own) teaches most of the birds on this page in sentences, free on the web.

Sources

1. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kiwi — brown kiwi and tokoeka; flightless, nocturnal endemic birds.
2. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tūī — parson bird; kōkō — tūī.
3. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kererū — New Zealand pigeon; kūkū — kererū.
4. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: pīwakawaka and tīwaiwaka — fantail.
5. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ruru — morepork, owl.
6. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kākā — forest parrot; a general term for all parrots.
7. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kea, kākāpō, kākāriki, pūkeko, takahē, weka, korimako, tīeke, hihi, kōkako, kōtare, kāhu, kārearea, kōtuku, toroa, kororā, tauhou, riroriro, tītī, kuaka, huia and moa (each looked up by name).
8. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hoiho — yellow-eyed penguin.
9. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: hōiho — horse (loan).
10. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: whio — whistle; blue duck, named after the call of the male bird.
11. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tokoeka — South Island brown kiwi.
12. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: manu — bird, any winged creature including bats.
13. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ika — fish, any creature that swims, including whales.
14. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kararehe — animal, especially with four legs.
15. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: tuatara, pekapeka, wētā, mokomoko, ngārara, pūrerehua, tuna, pāpaka, tohorā, aihe, kekeno and kiore (each looked up by name).
16. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kōura — crayfish; gold (loan).
17. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kurī, ngeru, hipi, heihei and rāpeti (loan).
18. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kau — cow (loan); to swim.
19. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: poaka — pig (loan); pied stilt.
20. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: ngaro — missing, lost, gone, extinct.
21. Te Ara: Kelly Keane, Ngā manu – birds, page 6: Birds’ names (kea, hoiho, kororā, kiwi, hihi, kākāriki, tīeke, whio).
22. Te Ara: Ngā manu – birds, page 3 (ruru, the cry echoed by its name).
23. Te Ara: Ngā manu – birds, page 2 (the fantail’s 20 or 30 Māori names).
24. Te Ara: Ngā manu – birds, page 1 (he kākā waha nui; he kōtuku rerenga tahi).
25. Te Ara: Moa — extinct less than 600 years ago; nine species recognised since 2009.
26. NZ Birds Online: species pages for each bird in the status table (tūī shown); huia — last accepted sighting 1907, named after its distress call.
27. NZ Birds Online: huia.
28. NZ Birds Online: morepork — the onomatopoeic ‘more-pork’ call.
29. NZ Birds Online: kea — endemic, Nationally Endangered.
30. NZ Birds Online: kākāpō — endemic, Nationally Critical.
31. NZ Birds Online: yellow-eyed penguin — endemic, Nationally Endangered.
32. NZ Birds Online: white heron — native, Nationally Critical.
33. DOC: Facts and threats to kiwi — about 70,000 kiwi, five species, status from Recovering to Nationally Critical.
34. DOC: Kiwi — tokoeka, ‘weka with a walking stick’ (Ngāi Tahu).
35. DOC: Kākāpō — 325 alive.
36. DOC: Takahē — around 500 as of October 2023.
37. Te Aka Māori Dictionary: kea — lives mainly in the alpine regions of the South Island.
38. DOC: Tūī (written with macrons).
39. DOC: Tuatara — endemic, At Risk–Relict, in the wild on 32 islands.
40. DOC: Bats/pekapeka — New Zealand’s only native land mammals, two species.
41. DOC: Wētā — more than 100 species, all endemic, 16 at risk.
42. DOC: Conservation status of plants and animals — the NZTCS categories.