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Te Ipukarea Society’s Bird of the Year Cook Islands competition has a mysterious new entry this year. An extinct bird you may have never heard of, the Kīko’i or Mauke Starling (Aplonis mavornata), writes Te Ipukarea Society. The Kiko’i was only ever found in the island of Mauke, meaning it is endemic to that one island. The last known recorded sighting of the Kikoi was in 1825 by a British visitor on the HMS Blonde, who also shot it while it was “hopping around on a tree”.
