Mohoua
mo-HOH-oo-uh
Genus
The small New Zealand bush birds known in Māori as mohoua
Literally: Mohoua (Māori name for these birds)
| Part | Meaning | Language | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mohoua | The indigenous Māori name for the small insectivorous birds of New Zealand now placed in this genus (whitehead, yellowhead, and pipipi) | Māori (mohoua) | Undivided proper vernacular name; not a Greek or Latin compound |
Mohoua is a monomial genus name treated as a feminine Latin noun by convention. It is an adoption of the Māori vernacular word mohoua directly into zoological nomenclature, with no Latin or Greek roots. It stands alone as a genus name and requires no epithet to be grammatically complete.
Pronunciation
- mo-HOH-oo-uh Antepenult rule: the penult vowel (ou = 'oo') is a diphthong, so the penult is stressed — giving mo-HOH-oo-uh (four syllables: mo / ho / u / a, with stress on the second syllable 'ho').
Commonly: In New Zealand English commonly heard as mo-HOO-uh (three syllables), collapsing the medial -ou- and final -a.
Other readings
Some sources trace the Māori word to the call of the bird (an onomatopoeic origin), but this is not firmly documented.
No dictionary forms were found for any segment of Mohoua; the word is a Māori vernacular name adopted whole into scientific nomenclature under ICZN Art. 11. The genus contains three living species endemic to New Zealand: M. albicilla (whitehead), M. ochrocephala (yellowhead / mohua), and M. novaeseelandiae (pipipi / brown creeper). The spelling 'mohua' (without the second 'o') is the more common modern Māori spelling for the yellowhead; the genus spelling 'Mohoua' follows the original 1850 description by John Edward Gray. Because the name is Māori and not a Latin/Greek compound, conventional Latinized stress rules are applied mechanically to the written form rather than reflecting Māori stress patterns.