Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Wildlife
NZ may be relatively young, geologically speaking, but its plants and animals go back a
long way. The tuatara, for instance, an ancient reptile unique to these islands, is a Gond-
wanaland survivor closely related to the dinosaurs, while many of the distinctive flightless
birds (ratites) have distant African and South American cousins.
Due to its long isolation, the country is a veritable warehouse of unique and varied
plants, most of which are found nowhere else. And with separation of the landmass occur-
ring before mammals appeared on the scene, birds and insects have evolved in spectacular
ways to fill the gaps.
The now extinct flightless moa, the largest of which grew to 3.5m tall and weighed over
200kg, browsed open grasslands much as cattle do today (skeletons can be seen at Auck-
land Museum), while the smaller kiwi still ekes out a nocturnal living rummaging among
forest leaf litter for insects and worms much as small mammals do elsewhere. One of the
country's most ferocious-looking insects, the mouse-sized giant weta, meanwhile, has
taken on a scavenging role elsewhere filled by rodents.
As one of the last places on earth to be colonised by humans, NZ was for millennia a
safe laboratory for such risky evolutionary strategies, but with the arrival first of Maori and
soon after of Europeans, things went downhill fast.
Many endemic creatures, including moa and the huia, an exquisite songbird, were driven
to extinction, and the vast forests were cleared for their timber and to make way for agri-
culture. Destruction of habitat and the introduction of exotic animals and plants have taken
a terrible environmental toll and New Zealanders are now fighting a rearguard battle to
save what remains.
B Heather and H Robertson's
Field Guide to the Birds of New Zealand
is a comprehensive guide for bird-watch-
ers and a model of helpfulness for anyone even casually interested in the country's remarkable bird life.
Birds & Animals
The first Polynesian settlers found little in the way of land mammals - just two species of
bat - but forests, plains and coasts alive with birds. Largely lacking the bright plumage
found elsewhere, NZ's birds - like its endemic plants - have an understated beauty that
does not shout for attention.
