A 9 ct gold mounted Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris) beak brooch, Wanganui, New Zealand, circa 1880

This extremely rare gold mounted beak of a female huia was made by a jeweler in Wanganui on the North Island of New Zealand during the last decades of the nineteenth century. No-one knows how many of these items were actually made but they are very few in number as the huia was already extremely rare at this time and by 1907 it was thought to be extinct.

The huia is an extinct species of New Zealand wattlebird, endemic to the North Island of New Zealand. The last confirmed sighting of a huia was in 1907, although there was a credible sighting in 1924.

An 1830s painting by John Gould illustrating the remarkable sexual dimorphism of the huia's beak. The female's beak (top) was finer, longer, and more curved than the male's (below). He drills a hole in the tree like a woodpecker; she is thought to have put her long curved beak into the hole to remove a grub and feed him.