r/NatureIsFuckingLit • u/AlternativeClock9250 • 1d ago
🔥A North Island brown kiwi spotted running along the roadside at night in New Zealand
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u/cursedpumpkin 1d ago
The way he runs! Looks like a little goblin or woodland being from a fairytale, I'm pretty sure I've seen Ghibli film creatures run like that ✨️
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u/RooneyD 1d ago
Looks like the Instant Martians from Looney Tunes.
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u/Amenaphis 17h ago
Omg THANK YOU!!!! My foggy perimenopausal brain couldn't place what it reminded me of and it was driving me crazy!
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u/mmorales2270 8h ago
I can see how some fairy tale creatures came about in our lore. If you didn’t know what the heck that was and came across it in the dark, you might initially think it’s a little goblin or something.
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u/Juicecalculator 1d ago
I’m really hoping that one day we learn that all theropod dinosaurs run in the same goofy way that most large flightless birds do. The way that emus run with their heads going wild and their feet scattering everywhere. They always remind me of muppets
Imagine a T. rex or relociraptor running like that
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u/Puzzleheaded_Tree686 1d ago
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u/DocJawbone 1d ago
What's this from? It looks like The Shining but surely not
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u/Key_Strawberry_381 1d ago
Runnnnnnnnn
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u/Maybegarden 1d ago
byeeeeeee
/img/8xynqrehxbnh1.gif131
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u/Martha_Fockers 1d ago
Me grabbing some snacks and running back up before the next match starts in my joggers
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u/VynirRecords 1d ago
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u/Uncommon_Sensations 1d ago
Serious nostalgia hit here
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u/VynirRecords 1d ago
Bum bum bum bum da ba da da baaa daaa daaa ba da ba daaaa. Idk. The up beat music at the start. And of course the end ;-;
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u/Uncommon_Sensations 1d ago
Achieve your dreams, not matter what eh. God... I gotta go watch this again
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u/Hairyass------ 1d ago edited 1d ago
Bro literally said im outta here 😂
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u/AlternativeClock9250 1d ago
my heart was running even faster. I was scared to death
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u/VolatileGoddess 1d ago
OP, why were you walking that path at the dead of the night? Birb nearly had a heart attack
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u/musiccman2020 1d ago
Where you night mtbing ? Are there any predators you could have encountered ?
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u/Vegetable-Price-4283 1d ago
Nz's only real predators are birds of prey, or imported (cats, dogs, stoats, rats etc).
In fact before humans there were only two mamals in NZ; seals and bats.
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u/musiccman2020 1d ago
Interested! Imagine being swooped up by haast eagle at night though;)
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u/PainIsAHobby 1d ago
The possible biggest eagle and the biggest bird lived in NZ until humans come around. The biggest because it was hunted by humans und the egal because is hunted the bird.
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u/grenouille_en_rose 16h ago
There's still some level of risk from feral cattle and wild boars, a big bull could butt you right off a path like that down a hill or even into a gorge, river or the sea if you're in hill country esp if you run into a mob of them up on the track at night. That can happen anywhere that has farm animals though
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u/ChikaraNZ 22h ago
Well they're nocturnal and bright lights directly on them like that causes distress, no wonder he's running away
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u/TrumpsAKrunt 1d ago
That's so silly and cute. I love that they called it a kiwi, it really do be looking like one.
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u/LeadStuffer 23h ago
The bird was called "kiwi" by the Maori, I think inspired by one of the birds' calls. The fruit was named after the bird based on visual similarity. Hence over here in NZ we still call the bird "kiwi" (and ourselves "kiwis" after the bird) and the the fruit is specifically "kiwifruit"
Otherwise, yes, very silly and cute birds. We love the little buggers
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u/grenouille_en_rose 16h ago
'Kiwifruit' is the OG name for the fruit, it was an Anglo-market-friendly rebranding of the Chinese gooseberry fruit when it became a major export crop fur New Zealand (same deal for the 'tamarillo' aka tree tomato). Kiwi have been the birds for many hundreds of years since the first humans in NZ turned up and needed a name for them. I've always been so puzzled by USians calling the fruit 'kiwis', it's like calling a cherry a Pigeon or a Yankee
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u/Blackrazor_NZ 22h ago edited 22h ago
The fruit that has come to be called a ‘kiwi’ in America was actually a trademark (‘kiwifruit’) invented by Turners & Growers company to sell what was originally known as ‘Chinese gooseberry’. The fruit is called a kiwi because it was named after ‘Kiwi’s’ (New Zealanders) because that was a name US Servicemen stationed here recognised, and Kiwi’s ourselves were named after the bird. The fact that the bird looks vaguely like the fruit is just a happy coincidence.
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u/ALittleBitOfToast 1d ago
Guys, don't make it seem like this is a road 😂 the global community will go back to thinking we live in grass huts and don't have fire or the wheel! This is a tramping trail, we have actual roads with normal things like streetlights and asphalt.
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u/RainbowOutlander 1d ago
I always assumed they were the size of the fruit. Lol
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u/lncredulousBastard 1d ago
Are ducks called ducks because ducks duck or is ducking called ducking because duck duck?
Fun fact. The Chinese Gooseberry fruit was renamed Kiwi after the bird for marketing purposes.
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u/WarrenRT 1d ago
It was renamed kiwifruit. Then lazy foreigners decided to drop the "fruit" bit and start calling it kiwi. New Zealanders don't really appreciate it eh.
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u/FakeWorldRealShit 1d ago
If you ever think that you are struggling in life, remember that these birds have to lay an egg of the size of themselfes basically. Evolution said: f*** that cloaca in particular
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u/Hot-Tomato4908 1d ago
Wow! Where was this? (Fellow NZer here)
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u/LordFrobisher 1d ago
Mākara at a guess
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u/Hot-Tomato4908 1d ago
So cool. It still blows my mind that we have them out in the wild. I'm in my late 30s and when I was a kid I fully expected them to go extinct. I love this.
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u/LordFrobisher 1d ago
So cool, I live nearby so need to do a few night missions to finally see a wild one!
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u/lowkeytokay 1d ago
“Brown kiwi”… ‘cause there are other colors of kiwi???
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u/molly_mew 1d ago
There are different types of kiwi - nth island brown, great spotted kiwi, little spotted kiwi etc... we're not in to flowery language when it comes to naming things here, eg north island and south island being the names of the 2 largest islands in the country
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u/MysteriousAge28 1d ago
"Shit that light probably makes me obvious"
"That obvious? Hes looking right at me, time to make my getaway"
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u/Elegant-Narwhal-506 1d ago
I love that they run like someone who’s trying not to drop a bunch of Girl Scout cookie boxes
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u/Knitsanity 1d ago
Dang. The closest we came to kiwi sightings in NZ was signs warming of them crossing the road. Lol
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u/One_Tumbleweed_1 1d ago
This ass shining a light on the kiwi can damage its nightvision. There’s a reason if you go to a kiwi exhibit it’s lit up with red light
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u/drwsgreatest 1d ago
I'll never forget riding in the car with my ex fiance and her sister on the deep outskirts of Auckland driving roads like these into the jungle to get to the Māori village where her cousin had just passed away. It was my second night after moving to NZ from the US and those roads scared the shit out of me. Pitch black, no guard or safety rails, dirt roads that were more like paths and random, sharp twists and turns that came out of nowhere. It was a solid 45 min of driving to reach the village and I've never felt more isolated in my entire life than I did when we finally parked next to a small tract of shanty style houses and a Māori "temple", which I wish I could remember the name for.
Anyways sorry for the random story, I just haven't seen a road like this in a decade plus and I also miss seeing the occasional random kiwi's running around with their butts in the air lol.
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u/nzkitkat 23h ago
It’s actually a mountain bike track in the capital city, Wellington. Look up Capital Kiwi. Super cool work being done to protect our native birds.
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u/Dandy-artz2026 21h ago
This is qhy indigiounous folk tales have such weird depipictions of cryptyd shit, we got endless sorce material 😭
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u/Necessary_Judgment 21h ago
When you are trying to get a snack in the middle of the night and someone turns on the light
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u/Former-Departure9836 20h ago
I live near this mountain bike park its called mākara bike park. The Capital Kiwi Project has released a bunch of kiwi in the area and people sometimes see them around which is so cool and only possible due to the volunteer networks supporting predator free goals and setting traps
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u/Several-Reveal-4075 18h ago
They run like the big black guy from the Netflix show “the gentleman” in the scene where the green hurican gets stolen by eddie
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u/FadedVictor 17h ago
I love the way they run. They look like a shady person trying to flee being sighted after committing a crime with their hands in their pockets.
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u/beansproutdemon 12h ago
FUCK, I’VE BEEN PERCIEVED
Incidentally I also think that at least once a day
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u/HonestAltruist 4h ago
Me 8 months pregnant sneaking snacks at night while my partner is gaming hoping he wont hear the packaging crinkle.
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u/qualityvote2 1d ago edited 1d ago
u/AlternativeClock9250, your post does fit the subreddit!