[Taxacom] New Zealand modern biota ALL by dispersal?

[Ken Kinman]

Dear All,
     The more I delve into this subject, the more I am inclined to believe 
that New Zealand's terrestrial biota was totally obliterated by submersion 
in the Oligocene.  If so, most of its present fauna probably dispersed 
eastward across the Tasman Sea.  I haven't yet read Michael Pole's 1994 
paper (that New Zealand's present flora probably all got there by 
dispersal), but I think I am going to like what he has to say.

     Perhaps the most difficult dispersal across the Tasman Sea to explain 
would be the frog genus Leiopelma, but I am mulling over some ideas.  
Compared to that it would be easy to explain Sphenodon's dispersal across 
the Tasman Sea, so if I can explain how Leiopelma probably dispersed across 
it, everything else would be a breeze.  I am really beginning to think that 
the fossil ancestors of such animals will eventually be found in the early 
Cenozoic of Australia, and that such ancestors will never be found in the 
early Cenozoic of New Zealand.
   ----Cheers,
           Ken Kinman

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