C. John Ralph Steven G. Fancy 1997 <p><span>The ‘I‘iwi is one of the most spectacular of extant Hawaiian birds, with vermilion plumage, black wings and tail, and long, decurved bill. In pre-European Hawai‘i, beautiful feather capes, sometimes containing hundreds of thousands of ‘I‘iwi feathers, were a symbol of power and prestige among native Hawaiians. The ‘I‘iwi is a bird of the Hawaiian forests. Its decurved bill seems well adapted to exploit nectar from the similarly shaped flowers of lobelioid plants (Campanulaceae). ‘I‘iwi and ‘Apapane (</span><i class="SciName">Himatione sanguinea</i><span>) are well known for their long flights over the forests in search of the flowers of the ‘öhi‘a (</span><i class="SciName">Metrosideros polymorpha</i><span>) tree, their primary food source. Probably as a consequence of their high flights, ‘I‘iwi, ‘Apapane, and ‘Ö‘ü (</span><i class="SciName">Psittirostra psittacea</i><span>) are the only 3 species of endemic Hawaiian honeycreepers in which the same subspecies occurs on more than one island. Contemporary interisland movements have not been documented.</span></p> application/pdf 10.2173/bna.327 en Academy of Natural Sciences and the American Ornithologist's Union Iiwi (<i>Vestiaria coccinea</i>) reports