The frontal shield on a pūkeko's head characterises it as a gallinule - part of the rail family (along with the weka and takahē).
Although native to this country, various gallinule subspecies are widespread overseas. In good old 'EnZed' the subspecies is called melanotus, and it's also found in northern and eastern Australia, Tasmania and the Kermadec and Chatham Islands
The pūkeko's more distant gallinule cousins are found from southern Europe and Africa, North America through Asia and across the Western Pacific.
There's some seriously cool DNA research aimed at unravelling the evolutionary relationships between our native pooks and their overseas relatives. Check out this article at the Biotech Learning Hub which suggests our North and South Island pūkeko may have different ancestral homes.
Porphyrio porphyrio melanotus is said to translate as ‘purple purple black' in Greek - surely it's some sort of divine coincidence that our subspecies of Kiwi pook is has ‘black' in its name?
In ancient times Porphyrio was held in high regard by other cultures. The French naturalist Buffon (1707-1788) noted the Greeks and Romans imported swamphens from Africa, letting them walk freely in their palaces and temples as a guest worthy of high places (due to their gracious nature and beautiful plumage). Narena Olliver notes that a purple swamphen is depicted climbing on papyrus stems in Egyptian wall paintings at Meidum
Pop back to Te Pūkeko Gallery
Check out the pūkeko's North American cousin
Or some beautiful ancient Italian mosaics of gallinules
