Distribution and Habitat
Subfossil deposits and midden remains suggest that the Huia was once widespread in both lowland and montane native forest throughout the North Island, extending from the northernmost tip at Cape Reinga to Wellington and the Aorangi Range in the far south. Only a few Huia are known from the extensive pitfall deposits in the karst of the Waitomo caves area and they are also rare or absent in fossil deposits in the central North Island and Hawke's Bay; it seems to have preferred habitats that are not well sampled by the deposits known at present. Its range appears to have contracted following Māori settlement in the middle 12th century. By the time of European settlement in the 1840s, the bird was found only in the forests of the southern North Island, south of a line from the Raukumara Range in the east, across the Kaimanawa Range, to the Turakina River in the Rangitikei in the west. In the south, its range extended to the Wairarapa and the Rimutaka Range east of Wellington. Reports collected by Walter Buller and a single waiata (Māori song) suggest that the Huia was once also found in the Marlborough and Nelson districts of the South Island; however, it has never been identified in the rich fossil deposits south of Cook Strait, and there is no other evidence of the species' presence.
The Huia inhabited both of the two principal forest types in New Zealand. They were primarily found in broadleaf-podocarp forests where there was a dense understorey, but occasionally also in Southern Beech (Nothofagus) forest. The species was observed in native vegetation including Mataī (Prumnopitys taxifolia), Rimu (Dacrydium cupressinum), Kahikatea (Dacrycarpus dacrydioides), Northern Rātā (Metrosideros robusta), Maire (Nestegis), Hinau (Elaeocarpus dentatus), Totara (Podocarpus totara), Rewarewa (Knightia excelsa), Mahoe (Melicytus ramiflorus), and Taraire (Beilschmiedia tarairi), and at sea level in Karaka (Corynocarpus laevigatus) trees at Cape Turakirae. It was never seen in burnt forest or land cleared for farming.
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