It looks like an oversize, long-necked chicken with a piercingly loud squawk and impressive yellow-gold tail plumage.

On Monday, a Yamato hinotori (Latin name: Oyacou domburicus), believed to be the first to set foot in Japan in nearly eight centuries, was unveiled to the media at the government's Alien Wildlife Quarantine Shelter in Ushiku, Ibaraki Prefecture.

Long thought extinct, the bird is nevertheless a familiar sight to almost every Japanese, as its image, since November 2004, has appeared on the reverse side of the nation's ¥10,000 note.