Rediscovered birds

The remarkable return of five extinct species

Critically endangered birds

Nine Red List, 26 nationally critical

Flightless
birds

Takahe  Kiwi
Kakapo  Penguin
Moa  Wren

Native
birds list

273 oceanic,
coastal and
terrestrial birds

Teal

Auckland Is.
Campbell Is.
Brown teal

Wattlebirds

Huia
Kokako
Saddleback

Mammals

Greater & Lesser
short-tailed bats,
Long-tailed bat

Gigantism in insects

Earthworms   

Weta

Living fossils

Leiopelma frogs
Land snails
Tuatara

Home > New Zealand ecology

Since European discovery of New Zealand, it has been realised that the islands had been isolated from the rest of the world for a long time.  Advancement of plate tectonic theory and synthesis of the earth sciences during the last 30 years, now provide reasons for the country's isolation.

New Zealand was originally part of the ancient southern super continent, Gondwana, which consisted of the major continents that are now Australia, South Africa, South America, India and Antarctica.  Until Jurassic times, it lay beneath a shallow sea, dotted with volcanic islands.

See the article
"New Zealand as an archipelago: An international perspective" by J. Diamond

A series of earth movements throughout the Triassic would eventually, by the late Jurassic, form a land of continental proportions half the size of Australia.  It extended north to New Caledonia, south to the Campbell Plateau, west to the Lord Howe Rise, and east to the Chatham Rise.

Small islands remain today in these extremities of the former continent, like New Zealand's subantarctic Campbell, Antipodes, Auckland and Snares Islands; Australia's Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands in the west, and New Zealand's Chatham Island in the east.  Flora and fauna developed during this period, that became endemic to New Zealand.

This was the first land mass to separate from the southern continent 80 million years ago - the beginning of a unique biological evolution.  Some species, including New Zealand's dinosaurs, became extinct, while others adapted and changed through severe climate changes and huge geological processes, as the land moved on the earth's surface and was eroded down and uplifted again.

   

When the first human settlers arrived in New Zealand from Polynesia in the 13th century, they found a terrestrial flora and fauna unique in the world.  Some species had developed from ancestors that evolved in the original Gondwana, and others had arrived over millions of years. The Polynesians found a land that was 85 percent covered with forest and large shrubs, with 80 percent of the plants endemic to New Zealand.

The terrestrial fauna was even more remarkably endemic, with very limited variety.  The only land-dwelling representatives of reptiles, mammals and amphibians were four small frogs, several lizards, the tuatara, and three bats.

The first humans found an abundance of birds, many of large proportion, but restricted in the variety of species. The bird fauna had evolved for millions of years in a non-mammalian predator free environment, which was reflected by a large number of species that were flightless or were poor fliers. Ratites proliferated in particular, with the largest moa (right), developing unopposed into the tallest bird the world has ever known.