The

animal Animals are multicellular, eukaryotic organisms in the biological kingdom Animalia. With few exceptions, animals consume organic material, breathe oxygen, are able to move, can reproduce sexually, and go through an ontogenetic stage ...

s of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island coun ...

, part of its biota, have an unusual history because, before the arrival of humans, less than 900 years ago, the country was mostly free of mammals, except those that could swim there (

seal Seal may refer to any of the following: Common uses * Pinniped, a diverse group of semi-aquatic marine mammals, many of which are commonly called seals, particularly: ** Earless seal, or "true seal" ** Fur seal * Seal (emblem), a device to imp ...

s, sea lions, and, off-shore,

whale Whales are a widely distributed and diverse group of fully aquatic placental marine mammals. As an informal and colloquial grouping, they correspond to large members of the infraorder Cetacea, i.e. all cetaceans apart from dolphins and ...

s and

dolphin A dolphin is an aquatic mammal within the infraorder Cetacea. Dolphin species belong to the families Delphinidae (the oceanic dolphins), Platanistidae (the Indian river dolphins), Iniidae (the New World river dolphins), Pontoporiidae (the b ...

s) or fly there ( bats), though as recently as the

Miocene The Miocene ( ) is the first geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and means "less recen ...

, it was home to the terrestrial

Saint Bathans mammal The Saint Bathans mammal is a currently unnamed extinct primitive mammal from the Early Miocene (Altonian) of New Zealand. A member of the Saint Bathans fauna, it is notable for being a late-surviving "archaic" mammal species, neither a placent ...

, implying that mammals had been present since the island had broken away from other landmasses. The absence of mammals meant that all of the ecological niches occupied by mammals elsewhere were occupied instead by either insects or birds, leading to an unusually large number of flightless birds, including the kiwi, the weka, the moa (now extinct), the takahē, and the kakapo. Tuatera

Because of the lack of predators, even bats spend most of their time on the ground. There are also about 60 species of

lizard Lizards are a widespread group of squamate reptiles, with over 7,000 species, ranging across all continents except Antarctica, as well as most oceanic island chains. The group is paraphyletic since it excludes the snakes and Amphisbaenia altho ...

(30 each of

gecko Geckos are small, mostly carnivorous lizards that have a wide distribution, found on every continent except Antarctica. Belonging to the infraorder Gekkota, geckos are found in warm climates throughout the world. They range from . Geckos a ...

and

skink Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. ...

), four species of frog (all rare and endangered), and the

tuatara Tuatara (''Sphenodon punctatus'') are reptiles endemic to New Zealand. Despite their close resemblance to lizards, they are part of a distinct lineage, the order Rhynchocephalia. The name ''tuatara'' is derived from the Māori language and m ...

(reptiles resembling lizards but with a distinct lineage). Some

butterflies of New Zealand The butterflies of New Zealand include twelve endemic species, as well as several introduced and migrant species. Lepidoptera, which includes the butterflies and moths, is the third largest insect order in New Zealand. Species list Conser ...

are endemic, while many species have been introduced and some species of butterflies periodically migrate to New Zealand. The

Australian painted lady The Australian painted lady (''Vanessa kershawi'') is a species of butterfly mostly confined to Australia, although westerly winds have dispersed it to islands east of Australia, including New Zealand. Debate surrounds the taxonomy of this spe ...

has been known to migrate from Australia to New Zealand in times of strong migration in Australia.

Invasive species

Humans first arrived via the Pacific islands, in several waves at some time before 1300 AD, bringing with them the

Polynesian rat The Polynesian rat, Pacific rat or little rat (''Rattus exulans''), known to the Māori as ''kiore'', is the third most widespread species of rat in the world behind the brown rat and black rat. The Polynesian rat originated in Southeast Asia, a ...

(''kiore'') and the domesticated dog. Europeans later brought pigs, ferrets, stoats, mice, rats, dogs, cats, sheep, cattle, and many other mammals. Of these, the rats,

ferret The ferret (''Mustela furo'') is a small, domesticated species belonging to the family Mustelidae. The ferret is most likely a domesticated form of the wild European polecat (''Mustela putorius''), evidenced by their interfertility. Other mus ...

cat The cat (''Felis catus'') is a domestic species of small carnivorous mammal. It is the only domesticated species in the family Felidae and is commonly referred to as the domestic cat or house cat to distinguish it from the wild members of ...

stoats The stoat (''Mustela erminea''), also known as the Eurasian ermine, Beringian ermine and ermine, is a mustelid native to Eurasia and the northern portions of North America. Because of its wide circumpolar distribution, it is listed as Least Conc ...

and dogs have all seriously impacted the New Zealand fauna, driving many species to extinction.

Brushtail possum The brushtail possums are the members of the genus ''Trichosurus'' in the Phalangeridae, a family of marsupials. They are native to Australia (including Tasmania) and some small nearby islands. Unique among marsupials, they have shifted the hy ...

s were introduced from Australia for a fur industry, and

deer Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the re ...

from Europe as game animals, both seriously damaging the forest habitat of many birds.T. T. Veblen and G. H. Stewart (1982). "The effects of introduced wild animals on New Zealand forests". ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers'', Vol. 72, No. 3, pp. 372 397. In recent years, successful efforts have been made to remove possums, rats, ferrets, and other mammals from many large and small offshore islands in an effort to return these places to something more closely resembling their pre-human state. An estimated 30 tons of dead possums were removed from

Kapiti Island Kapiti Island () is an island about off the west coast of the lower North Island of New Zealand. It is long, running southwest/northeast, and roughly wide, being more or less rectangular in shape, and has an area of . Its name has been used s ...

, for example. Similarly, efforts are being made to control such species in selected locations on the mainland. In a further step, in certain mainland reserves mammals are being eliminated within predator-proof fences creating

ecological island An ecological island is a term used in New Zealand, and increasingly in Australia, to refer to an area of land (not necessarily an actual island) isolated by natural or artificial means from the surrounding land, where a natural micro-habitat exists ...

s. Examples are

Zealandia Zealandia (pronounced ), also known as (Māori) or Tasmantis, is an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust that subsided after breaking away from Gondwanaland 83–79 million years ago.Gurnis, M., Hall, C.E., and Lavier, L.L., ...

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by ...

city, from which about a ton of dead possums was removed after the installation of a mammal-proof fence, and the

Maungatautari Restoration Project Maungatautari is a mountain, rural community, and ecological area near Cambridge in the Waikato region in New Zealand's central North Island. The New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage gives a translation of "mountain of the upright st ...

References

External links

Native animals
at the Department of Conservation
Fauna of New Zealand
at Landcare Research
Animals databases
at Landcare Research {{DEFAULTSORT:Fauna Of New Zealand

Invasive species

See also

References

Further reading

External links