rekordy: Fauna of New Zealand

Evidence: 100 • authority: 72

The animals of New Zealand, 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 (seals, sea lions, and, off-shore, whales and dolphins) or fly there (bats). However, as recently as the Miocene, it was home to the terrestrial Saint Bathans mammal, 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 wek…

Evidence: 37 • authority: 88

Handbook of New Zealand Mammals. The Handbook of New Zealand Mammals is the only definitive reference on all the land-breeding mammals recorded in the New Zealand region (including the New Zealand sector of Antarctica). It lists 65 species, including native and exotic, wild and feral, living and extinct, residents, vagrants and failed introductions. It describes their history, biology and ecology, and brings together comprehensive and detailed information gathered from widely scattered or previously unpublished sources. The description of each species is arranged under standardised headings for easy reference. Because the only native land-breeding mammals in New Zealand are bats and seals,…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

The biodiversity of New Zealand, a large island country located in the south-western Pacific Ocean, is varied and distinctive. The species of New Zealand accumulated over many millions of years as lineages evolved in the local circumstances. New Zealand's pre-human biodiversity exhibited high levels of species endemism, but has experienced episodes of biological turnover. Global extinction approximately 66 Ma (million years ago) resulted in the loss of fauna such as non-avian dinosaurs, pterosaurs and marine reptiles e.g. mosasaurs, elasmosaurs and plesiosaurs. The ancient fauna is not well known, but at least one species of terrestrial mammal existed in New Zealand around 19 Ma. For at lea…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 72

The natural history of New Zealand began when the landmass Zealandia – today an almost entirely submerged mass of continental crust with New Zealand and a few other islands peaking above sea level – broke away from the supercontinent Gondwana in the Cretaceous period. Before this time, Zealandia shared its past with Australia and Antarctica. Since this separation, the New Zealand landscape has evolved in physical isolation, although much of its current biota has more recent connections with species on other landmasses. The exclusively natural history of the country ended in about 1300 AD, when humans first settled there, and the country's environmental history began. The period from 1300 AD…

Evidence: 23 • authority: 72

This is a list of the native wild mammal species recorded in Madagascar. As of June 2014 (following the IUCN reassessment of the lemurs) there are 241 extant mammal species recognized in Madagascar, of which 22 are critically endangered, 62 are endangered, 32 are vulnerable, 9 are near threatened, 72 are of least concern and 44 are either data deficient or not evaluated. All of the critically endangered species are lemurs. The mammalian fauna of Madagascar is highly distinctive and largely endemic. The extant nonmarine, nonchiropteran taxa constitute (as of June 2014) 168 species, 40 genera and 9 families; of these, besides a probably introduced shrew, endemic taxa make up all the species,…

Evidence: 23 • authority: 72

New Zealand (Māori: Aotearoa, pronounced [aɔˈtɛaɾɔa] ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It comprises two main landmasses—the North Island (Te Ika-a-Māui) and the South Island (Te Waipounamu)—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island country by area and lies east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and south of the islands of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. The country's varied topography and sharp mountain peaks, including the Southern Alps (Kā Tiritiri o te Moana), owe much to tectonic uplift and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, and its most populous city is Auckland. The islands of New Zealand were the last large habita…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The fauna of Madagascar is a part of the wildlife of Madagascar. Madagascar has been an isolated island for about 70 million years, breaking away from Africa around 165 million years ago, then from India nearly 100 million years later. This isolation led to the development of a unique endemic fauna. Before humans arrived about 2,000 years ago, there were many large and unusual animals living there, descended from species that were originally present when Madagascar became an island, or from species that later crossed the sea to Madagascar. Ecological niches were often filled by animals with quite different histories from those on the African mainland, often leading to convergent evolution.…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

The New Zealand wrens are a family (Acanthisittidae) of tiny passerines endemic to New Zealand. They were represented by seven Holocene species in four or five genera, although only two species in two genera survive today. They are understood to form a distinct lineage within the passerines, but authorities differ on their assignment to the oscines or suboscines (the two suborders that between them make up the Passeriformes). More recent studies suggest that they form a third, most ancient, suborder Acanthisitti and have no living close relatives at all. They are called "wrens" because of similarities in appearance and behaviour to the true wrens (Troglodytidae) but are not members of that…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

This is a list of New Zealand species extinct in the Holocene that covers extinctions from the Holocene epoch, a geologic epoch that began about 11,650 years Before Present (about 9700 BCE) and continues to the present day. This epoch equates with the latter third of the Haweran Stage of the Wanganui epoch in the New Zealand geologic time scale. The North Island and South Island are the two largest islands of New Zealand. Stewart Island is the largest of the smaller islands. New Zealand proper also includes outlying islands such as the Chatham Islands, Kermadec Islands, and New Zealand Subantarctic Islands. Only New Zealand proper is represented on this list, not the Realm of New Zealand. F…

Evidence: — • authority: 72

Prehistoric and Indigenous cultures significantly transformed their environments by constructing irrigation systems and terraces, building roads and structures, clearing forests, hunting wildlife, growing crops, and managing livestock. These behaviors were common in most habitats where humans lived, and they ushered in the Anthropocene era – the epoch defined by major human impacts on the Earth. Prehistoric hunter-gatherers used fire to clear dense vegetation, improve mobility, and facilitate hunting. The development of agriculture accelerated the impact of humans on the surrounding landscapes. Farming often required clearing cropland, preparing soils, diverting or controlling water, and cu…

Evidence: — • authority: 92

Viral surveillance of invasive mammals in New Zealand reveals unique viral lineages reflecting their introduction history.. Introduced mammalian species in Aotearoa New Zealand pose significant ecological risks and may serve as reservoirs for novel or emerging infectious diseases. In this study, we present the first metatranscriptomic survey of viruses in five introduced mammals: ferrets ( Mustela furo ), stoats ( Mustela erminea ), weasels ( Mustela nivalis ), brushtail possums ( Trichosurus vulpecula ), and European hedgehogs ( Erinaceus europaeus ), sampled across both the North and South Islands. Through total RNA sequencing, we identified 11 mammalian-infecting viruses spanning eight v…