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Unique New Zealand |
People living in New Zealand are very lucky to be surrounded by such wonderful native animals and plants (that's fauna and flora). But the beauty of New Zealand's plants and animals has nothing to do with luck, it has to do with time - a long, long time..... |
The land of Gondwana
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200 million years ago (WOW, that is a
long time) New Zealand was part of a big continent called Gondwana. Then about 140 million years ago Gondwana slowly began to split apart. After millions of years it had split into the different countries and continents we know today. The big ones are Australia, South America, Africa, Antarctica and India. Lots of smaller island countries were also created, one of those was New Zealand. |
80 million years ago
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Imagine you are doing a jigsaw puzzle.
You spread out the pieces and join some together. One piece falls off the table and gets
lost. In the jigsaw of the continents, the lost piece is New Zealand. 80 million years ago it drifted away from all the other countries which had been part of Gondwana. |
60 million years ago
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It did not drift near other countries or join up with any other lands. |
New Zealand as it is today
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All alone in the ocean, the lone piece of jigsaw was like a raft with a special crew of plants and animals. |
| The Animals... | Primitive animals lived in Gondwana.
They became marooned on the islands of New Zealand, isolated from other lands. They were
the ancestors of moa, kiwi, tuatara and giant snails, earthworms and weta. In other lands different animals began to evolve. Animals appeared which had live babies and suckled them on milk. They are called mammals. You are a mammal. Mammals spread over the other lands but the sea was like a moat around New Zealand. Mammals which couldn't fly, couldn't get to New Zealand. So the animals from old Gondwana went on living in New Zealand in a land with no mammals to eat them, or take their food. Only flying animals could get to New Zealand, and bats are the only mammals that can fly. So bats came to New Zealand, along with flying insects and some birds. Because of its isolation and lack of land mammals, New Zealand became a land filled with unique animals, ancient frogs with no tadpoles, insects as big as mice and birds that did not fly. |
| The Plants... | The plants of Gondwana were primitive.
There were many ferns and cone-bearing species (some of which have become extinct), and
the earliest flowering plants. These plants were also marooned on the islands of New
Zealand. The seeds of some new plants managed to reach New Zealand by floating across the seas, being blown by the wind or carried in the bellies of birds - these plants became natives too. Most countries share their native plants with other countries, but not New Zealand. Many of our native plants are endemic, meaning they are only found in New Zealand. 85% of New Zealand's native flowering plants are endemic. |
What's endemic, what's native, what's introduced? |
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| Endemic means found only in a particular country, eg. the kauri tree is endemic to New Zealand, it is not found naturally in any other country. | Native means found naturally in a number of countries, eg. the akeake tree is native to both New Zealand and Australia. | Introduced means that people have brought a plant or animal to a country where it did not live naturally before, eg. rats, deer and gorse are introduced to New Zealand. |
| Today, most ancient plant and animal
species have disappeared from other lands, but many still survive in New Zealand. Many of these amazing plants and animals are now threatened with extinction because people have cleared forests, drained wetlands, polluted streams and introduced weeds and animal pests. To learn about New Zealand's threatened species go to the Threatened! fact sheet.
Learn more about New Zealand KCC Website Fact Sheets The 'Unique New Zealand' information was written in November 1999. Updated April 2001. |
