New Zealand has long been a conundrum to biogeographers, possessing as it does
geophysical and biotic features characteristic of both an island and a continent. This schism …

Islands have long been recognized as distinctive evolutionary arenas leading to
morphologically divergent species, such as dwarfs and giants. We assessed how body size …

Since the 1980s, morphological and molecular research has resulted in significant
advances in understanding the relationships and origins of the recent terrestrial vertebrate …

Crocodyliform palaeontology in Australasia has a productive research record that began in
the late nineteenth century and continues today. In this study, we summarize the current …

An endemic and previously unknown lineage of shorebirds (Charadriiformes: Scolopaci) is
described from early Miocene (19–16 Ma) deposits of New Zealand. Hakawai melvillei gen …

Eight species of terrestrial Mollusca are recorded from Early–Middle Miocene sediments
from palaeolake Manuherikia, near St Bathans, central Otago, New Zealand. Five new …

New Zealand is part of Zealandia, an ancient continent that originated along the margins of
East Antarctica in the late Cretaceous, and formed along the joint edges of the Australian …

Abstract Distribution patterns are the product of processes, including the arrival of taxa from
other lands across the seas around New Zealand, localised speciation, dispersal of …

Three kinds of processes are known to modify the geographical spatial arrangement of
organisms: dispersal, extinction and vicariance. The Southern Hemisphere has an intriguing …