奇妙岛屿 09

Amazingly,

one single type of finch evolved into 58 different species and all because the birds that normally fill these roles,

like hummingbirds and woodpeckers, never made it to these islands.

Landfall in the Pacific is a risky business.

Most islands are small, low and rather uniform,

with few lifestyle choices on offer.

But there is an archipelago that truly bucks the trend.

Two of the largest islands in the Pacific have everything a castaway could dream of.

Here lives a greater diversity of unique island creatures than almost anywhere else in the South Pacific.

Forested valleys, turbulent rivers and glacier-topped peaks，

this is New Zealand.

A thousand miles long and with a mountainous spine rising one-and-a-half miles above the ocean,

New Zealand offered a world of possibilities to creatures that found their way here.