Rats, disease, and climate change are threatening Hawaii's spectacular songbirds

Hawaii’s answer to the cardinal is a perfect, scarlet, nectar-sipping beauty called the ‘I’iwi — but you should see it soon, if you want to see it at all. The ‘I’iwi and its extremely rare relatives are being wiped out by mosquitoes, climate change, and rats, a new study says.

Six species on the island of Kauai are in danger of going extinct

The ‘I’iwi belongs to a family of brightly colored songbirds called the Hawaiian honeycreepers, which are unique to the remote Hawaiian archipelago. They descended from a small group of finches that arrived sometime between 7.2 and 5.8 million years ago. New volcanic islands popping up over time gave the birds new environments to adapt to. Different groups found different food sources: snails,...