[00:00.20]Amazingly,
[00:01.26]one single type of finch evolved into 58 different species and all because the birds that normally fill these roles,
[00:09.26]like hummingbirds and woodpeckers, never made it to these islands.
[00:20.63]Landfall in the Pacific is a risky business.
[00:24.40]Most islands are small, low and rather uniform,
[00:28.93]with few lifestyle choices on offer.
[00:31.75]But there is an archipelago that truly bucks the trend.
[00:40.02]Two of the largest islands in the Pacific have everything a castaway could dream of.
[00:54.83]Here lives a greater diversity of unique island creatures than almost anywhere else in the South Pacific.
[01:09.82]Forested valleys, turbulent rivers and glacier-topped peaks，
[01:15.45]this is New Zealand.
[01:25.49]A thousand miles long and with a mountainous spine rising one-and-a-half miles above the ocean,
[01:31.39]New Zealand offered a world of possibilities to creatures that found their way here.
[01:35.96]