Animals / kakapo-mating-dance
Facts about Kakapo Mating Dance
- 05
A male kakapo may walk several kilometres uphill each night to reach his booming site, where he calls repeatedly throughout the night to attract distant females.
- 04
Kakapo mating seasons are triggered by mast fruiting events, when certain trees produce an unusually large crop of fruit, sometimes years apart.
- 03
The kakapo mating dance is part of a lek breeding system, one of the rarest reproductive strategies among parrots.
- 02
During the kakapo mating dance, males inflate their chests like a resonating chamber to amplify booming calls that can travel several kilometres through the forest.
- 01
Male kakapos perform their mating display by excavating shallow bowl-shaped depressions in the ground and producing deep booming calls to attract females.