- Other Names: アガチ (agachi), アガチャー (agachaa), ヤマドゥイ (yamadui)
- Japanese: ヤンバルクイナ (Yanbaru kuina)
The Yanbaru kuina is a species of flightless bird, a rail, endemic to the Yanbaru region of northern Okinawa Island. It is the only flightless bird species in Japan.
Though formally described and established as a new species by scientists only in 1981, the bird had been well-known to locals whose work took them into the forests; it was traditionally known by several names, including agachi or agachaa (a word related to the Japanese awateru, describing the bird as rushing around, easily flustered), and simply as yamadui ("mountain bird").
They are known to eat a variety of fruits and small creatures, including bayberries (J: yamamomo), snails, earthworms, and insects. Though flightless, they climb trees and sleep high in the branches in order to avoid predators.
Kuina populations are endangered by development, cars and other human sources of danger, and by the island's invasive mongoose population.[1]
