The Mystery of New Zealand's only Native Land Mammal

New Zealand is a kingdom of birds with only bats and seals making up its mammal inhabitants that would have flown or swam here however New Zealand has no native land mammals but it may not have always been this way the jaw bone and femur of a 16 million year old Miocene terrestrial mammal was found in New Zealand's South Island and was named with the Saint battens mammal before this there have been no fossils of terrestrial mammals ever found in New Zealand a set of islands that is a thousand miles away from its nearest large landmass so where did this creature come from and how did he get New Zealand the Saint Barnes mammal was found in the Bannockburn formation pre-plea Essene fossils are quite rare in New Zealand so this mid Maya scene habitat offers a glimpse into a world that is quite different to the more famous ecosystems that existed just before the arrival of humans with the giant mole birds the habitat was a lakeside beach and many of the flightless birds that would later dominate New Zealand's habitats could be found here like mowers only these were they're not so familiar smaller primitive ancestors there was also an old Kiwi called Pro app tricks that was half the size of current day Kiwis as well as animals that are still alive today like to eat Aras and among all of these interesting animals was the Saint Athens mammal it was very small being about the same size as a mouse and it would have probably lived like an opportunistic rodent scurrying around the beach for food for how did it get to an island a thousand miles away from any large land masses while the mystery of the st. boffins mammal is actually two mysteries in one in the early cretaceous 85 million years ago New Zealand was still part of Gondwana the southern supercontinent that was made up of South America Antarctica and Australia and New Zealand was attached to the Antarctic portion of it although Cretaceous mammals have not been found in Antarctica mammals are well known from Australia and also in South America during the Cretaceous continents that we either side of Antarctica at this time this meant that it was highly likely that mammals must have roamed across arctica and could have migrated into new zealand as well the absence of New Zealand's mammals before the arrival of humans is puzzling them because if the continents were attached then why didn't meant into New Zealand when it was connected like they did with all the other continents the made up Gondwana and now the mystery thickens because terrestrial mammals did live on the islands just in very small numbers and there must have gone extinct some millions of years ago examining the femur of the st. boffins mammals suggests it would have had a sprawling posture not seen in marsupials or placental mammals because of this it was thought that the creature might be a monitoring which our egg-laying mammals like platypus they are the most primitive mammals alive today they also walk with a sprawling posture and of course survived the KT extinction that killed off the dinosaurs there are animals likes to repperton there was a platypus like monotreme known from the Cretaceous 105 million years ago in Australia and the tooth of a similar animal has been discovered in South America showing the monitoring's must have had a range spreading across Gondwana because of this an early monotreme could have migrated into New Zealand before the breakup of the continents but further study of their Anatomy has led scientists to believe the creature was actually not a monitoring nor a placental or marsupial but belonged to a different distinct group of mammals this creatures ancestors broke away sometime before the divergence of marsupials and placentals and probably survived the KT extinction on its own lineage and then survived up until the Maya scene has a completely separate group of animals and there may have been other species of this group in New Zealand yet to be discovered however a problem with this theory is that although New Zealand's tectonic plate may have been attached Antarctica and then moved out into the South Pacific the islands themselves may have only recently formed New Zealand's fauna seems to be made up of recent immigrants the vast majority of large native animals that are found here are either flying animals or aquatic animals that that made a big trip across the oceans from neighboring Southeast Asia Australia or Antarctica and have then taken advantage of the absence of competition found here for instance New Zealand's most famous inhabitants the flightless birds are from several different flying lineages the kiwi and the MOA are from a group known as ratites that would have flown here and then become flightless the closest relative of the kakapo and kea are parrots from Asia and the kakapo has become too heavy to fly as well and penguins swam over from Antarctica the only non introduced mammal inhabitants are seals which would have again swam to New Zealand from neighbouring land masses and also three species of bats that could have flowed here like the birds the bats native to New Zealand I known as meister Sina and similar to flightless birds found here and unlike any other bat species have evolved towards flightlessness they spend a lot of their time on the ground and unique among any bats are able to fold their wings up to the point where they look like normal arms and legs to help them while moving across the ground in the Miocene formation where the st. Bothans mammal was found there was a prehistoric giant version of these bat species could a Vulcan ox there was about three times the size of the current species and this means that a bat may have been the largest species of terrestrial mammal that had ever lived on New Zealand until humans arrived on the islands as animals in non-competitive environments tend to diversify more in a ball faster for higher diversity of previously flying flightless birds and more grounded bats indicates the recent arrival of many animal groups to a previously mostly uninhabited island this has led some researchers to argue that New Zealand was actually completely submerged by the sea up until about 30 million years ago or so where was then colonized by its current animals even today New Zealand exists on a giant continental shelf that is mostly underwater and the islands that make up New Zealand are just a small part of this poking out above the sea line this only further complicates how the Saint boffins mammal was able to find its way on to New Zealand if the islands might not have even existed until 30 million years ago however although the sea level was almost certainly much higher in New Zealand for the first half of the Cenozoic it is improbable to believe it was ever completely submerged there are other ancient land animals found here along with the Saint Bothans mammal like tuataras Leo helmeted frogs and velvet warmers so if New Zealand only emerged from the water 30 million years ago all these animals would have had to find their way across the sea which seems highly unlikely to Ataris may have been washed over by a raft of vegetation which is how reptiles have got into islands and other parts of the world even this was very unlikely as well as New Zealand was over 600 miles away from Australia as early as 16 million years ago it is most likely that the New Zealand archipelago was never fully submerged but due to considerably higher sea levels was much smaller when it broke away from Gondwana than it is now this smaller archipelago was only large enough to sustain small mammal species and the other ancient lineages but when the sea levels lowered 30 million years ago there was a relatively uninhabited landmass ready to be colonized by birds so along with many other animals in New Zealand like to atera and velvet worms the Saint Athens mammal was probably a living fossil just one that didn't survive until the present day it was a dinosaur era relic older than marsupials and placentals and survived up until 20 million years ago on an island dominated by birds thank you for watching if you like the video and would like to be updated a future content then consider subscribing a massive thank you goes to my patrons for supporting me especially Green Falls and Falls are worth if you would like to support me as well then you can go to patreon and make a pledge you

Channel: Moth Light Media

Views: 183,514

Rating: 4.9562263 out of 5

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Id: lxNP_uuge3g

Length: 8min 27sec (507 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 26 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/HourDark]

I like how the depiction in this vid is based off of the cryptozoological Waitoreke, a supposed otter-like native mammal found in New Zealand

[u/Simbawitz]

Mind-blowing to think of how close New Zealand came to total submersion - if in fact it didn't go all the way down.