The King Kong Grosbeak (Chloridops regiskongi) is a prehistoric

Prehistory

Prehistory is the span of time before recorded history. Prehistory can refer to the period of human existence before the availability of those written records with which recorded history begins. More broadly, it refers to all the time preceding human existence and the invention of writing...

 species of finch

Finch

The true finches are passerine birds in the family Fringillidae. They are predominantly seed-eating songbirds. Most are native to the Northern Hemisphere, but one subfamily is endemic to the Neotropics, one to the Hawaiian Islands, and one subfamily – monotypic at genus level – is found...

 in the Hawaiian honeycreeper

Hawaiian honeycreeper

Hawaiian honeycreepers are small, passerine birds endemic to Hawaii. Some authorities still categorize this group as a family Drepanididae, but in recent years, most authorities consider them a subfamily, Drepanidinae, of Fringillidae, the finch family...

 subfamily, Drepanididae, that was endemic to Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

. It had the largest beak of the three Chloridops

Chloridops

Chloridops is an extinct genus of birds. It comprised three species: two on the Big Island of Hawaii and one that inhabited Kauai, Oahu and Maui. The genus includes the following three species:*Kona Grosbeak - extinct...

species known to have existed. The King Kong Grosbeak was described from fossil

Fossil

Fossils are the preserved remains or traces of animals , plants, and other organisms from the remote past...

s found at Barber's Point and Ulupau Head on the island of Oahu

Oahu

Oahu or Oahu , known as "The Gathering Place", is the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and most populous of the islands in the U.S. state of Hawaii. The state capital Honolulu is located on the southeast coast...

. It was 11 inches (27.9 cm) long, making it one of the largest Hawaiian honeycreepers. It was probably just a larger form of the Kona Grosbeak

Kona Grosbeak

The Kona Grosbeak is an extinct species of finch in the Hawaiian honeycreeper subfamily, Drepanidinae. The Kona Grosbeak was endemic to naio forests on ʻaʻā lava flows at elevations of near the Kona District on the island of Hawaii...

.

The unusual name given to the species came from a reporter’s misquoting of ornithologist Storrs L. Olson

Storrs L. Olson

Storrs Lovejoy Olson is an American biologist and ornithologist from the Smithsonian Institution. He is one of the world's foremost avian paleontologists....

’s discovery of the then-unnamed species as being “a giant, gargantuan, King Kong

King Kong

King Kong is a fictional character, a giant movie monster resembling a gorilla, that has appeared in several movies since 1933. These include the groundbreaking 1933 movie, the film remakes of 1976 and 2005, as well as various sequels of the first two films...

finch.”