ʻAnianiau

Appearance

The 'anianiau is a brightly plumaged yellow bird and at 10 centimetres (3.9 in) in length, the smallest Hawaiian honeycreeper. The ʻanianiau has a slightly curved bill and a mass of about 10 g. The plumage of the female is more uniform and has a duller yellow-green color than the male's bright yellow.

Range and habitat

ʻAnianiau are found in mesic and wet forests at elevations above 600 m (2,000 ft). The highest densities occur above 1,100 m (3,600 ft). Dominant tree species in its habitat include koa (Acacia koa), ʻōhiʻa lehua (Metrosideros polymorpha), ʻōlapa (Cheirodendron trigynum), and lapalapa (C. Platyphyllum).

The ʻanianiau (pronounced ) is a Hawaiian honeycreeper that is endemic to upper elevation forests on the island of Kauai. This species is protected in the Alakai Wilderness Preserve and surrounding environs as well as Waimea Canyon and Kokeʻe State Parks.

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

Diet and breeding

The ʻanianiau breeding season ranges from February to June. Both male and female have the ability to create a small cup-shaped nest of twigs and lichens in an ʻōhiʻa tree.

The small yellow chicks leave the nest in three weeks, but while in the nest they are fed on a mainly protein diet of caterpillars.

In crisis

Habitat degradation and invasion by non-native plants are the most significant threats to this species.

ʻAnianiau is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on ʻAnianiau, Wikidata item Q1308335. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.