Can you name a country that doesn’t have any native land
mammals, where the dominant herbivore as recently as 800 years
ago was a flightless, now-extinct 500-pound bird that could
browse leaves 10 feet off the ground, and the national symbol is
another genus of flightless, endangered bird? Hint: it’s also
the place where penguins first evolved and is currently home to
six species of them, including two of the rarest. Answer: New
Zealand (or Aotearoa, in the Maori language). Surprising? Not
really. Both New Zealand and Antarctica were once part of
Gondwana, the ancient supercontinent, and remained in close
proximity when penguins first evolved some 65 million years ago.
Today, having drifted north from the Ross Sea side of
Antarctica, New Zealand seems far removed from Antarctica,
whereas the Antarctic Peninsula, with its ecotourism boom,
practically reaches up to touch South America. Still, the oldest
penguin fossils yet found are from New Zealand, and six species
breed there, including four endemics. Most of