What was Gondwana?

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Gondwana was a part of Pangea that drifted away, and then kept breaking up further. If you look at the diagram on the right, you can see how New Zealand used to be joined to other countries, and how it has moved away.

	Around 140 million years ago, Gondwana slowly began to split apart.
	80 million years ago, the piece of Gondwana that is now New Zealand drifted away from the other countries.
	60 million years ago, here it was. It did not drift near any other countries or join up with any other lands.
	And there it was, all alone in the ocean, like a raft with a special crew of plants and animals.

Primitive animals lived in Gondwana. They became marooned on the islands of New Zealand, isolated from other lands. They were the ancestors of moa, kiwi, tuatara and giant snails, earthworms and weta.

In other lands different animals began to evolve. Animals appeared which had live babies and suckled them on milk. They are called mammals. You are a mammal. Mammals spread over the other lands but the sea was like a moat around New Zealand. Mammals which couldn't fly, couldn't get to New Zealand. So the animals from old Gondwana went on living in New Zealand in a land with no mammals to eat them, or take their food. Only flying animals could get to New Zealand, and bats are the only mammals that can fly. So bats came to New Zealand, along with flying insects and some birds.

Because of its isolation and lack of land mammals, New Zealand became a land filled with unique animals, ancient frogs with no tadpoles, insects as big as mice and birds that did not fly.

The plants of Gondwana were primitive. There were many ferns and cone-bearing species (some of which have become extinct), and the earliest flowering plants. These plants were also marooned on the islands of New Zealand. The seeds of some new plants managed to reach New Zealand by floating across the seas, being blown by the wind or carried in the bellies of birds - these plants became natives too. Most countries share their native plants with other countries, but not New Zealand. Many of our native plants are endemic, meaning they are only found in New Zealand. Today, most ancient plant and animal species have disappeared from other lands, but many still survive in New Zealand.