The Kakapo lives only in certain areas of New Zealand, and has blotched yellow and green feathers. It has whisker-like feathers on its face, these act as a sensory array. The Kakapo has a large, grey beak, short legs, large feet, and short wings and tail.  This is the heaviest parrot, nocturnal, flightless, and has a low metabolic rate.  There are only 125 know individuals left, so few that many have been given individual names.  The kakapo’s ancestors were trapped on New Zealand around 82 million years ago, the Kakapo evolved  around 70 million years ago.  On their island, the Kakapo had no natural land predators, so they lost their ability to fly, when early english colonists came to the area they brought with them cats, rats, and stoats along with other animals, these species nearly wiped out the Kakapo.  Conservation began in the 1890s but saw little success until the 1980s. Now the entire Kakapo population is housed on two predator free islands, and two more islands are being prepared for them.  The Kakapo are religiously signifigant to the Maori people of New Zealand.  The Kakapo is the only flightless parrot, and the only bird to use a lek mating system, males compete for mates within an “arena”, females watch the diplay (lek) and choose a mate, the is no pursuit, or bond, couples meet only to reproduce and males don’t care for the young.  At one point the Kakapo was New Zealand’s third most common bird, now it is on the brink of disaster.