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June 19, 2005

No Mammals? PekaPeka!

I recently read an interesting fact about New Zealand. Supposedly, the island has no native mammals. No native mammals, I thought to myself. What about marsupials downunder and such?

So I decided to look into this claim, which, I believe, was made in a National Geographic article.

So the claim is actually false, there are very FEW mammals native to New Zealand.

Of course there are transient mammals - marine mammals like seals and whales.

But there is also a single mammal family native to New Zealand - and it's a group everyone always forgets - BATS!

Bats are New Zealand's only endemic land mammals. In proverb, the Maori refer to bats as pekapeka and associate them with the mythical, night-flying bird, hokioi, which foretells death or disaster.

More at: New Zealand Department of Conservation

Posted by sorsha at June 19, 2005 8:49 PM