Buttonquails are perhaps the most interesting case of convergent evolution in the avian world; despite not at all being closely related to them, they evolved to look and act very similarly to true quails. The only obvious anatomical difference that sets them apart from the true quails is their lack of a toe at the back of each foot.
Apparently, their similarity to true quails was so extreme that there were attempts to introduce one species, the painted buttonquail, to where it did not previously exist so that it could be hunted as game.
In New Zealand, it was released in Auckland and Canterbury in the 1800s, but, like so many other exotic species, failed to establish.
It was also introduced to Hawaii, as shown in the 1968 Audubon Illustrated Handbook of American Birds:
Not surprisingly, it doesn't exist there in the present day, either.
Had it survived and bred in the wilderness of New Zealand, I'm sure that it would have become a localised curiosity in the vein of the cirl bunting and kookaburra; perhaps fulfilling its intended purpose as a game bird if it became populous enough.
But, as ever, the days of when that could have become reality are now long gone.
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