New Zealand is situated about 1,600 km (1,000 mi) southeast of Australia and is made up of two large islands - North Island and South Island. Cook Strait, a channel between the South Pacific Ocean on the east and the Tasman Sea on the west separates these islands.
Flora And Fauna of New Zealand
New Zealand's flora includes almost 1,500 indigenous species, including the golden kowhai and the scarlet pohutukawa. However introduced plant species are equally large in number. Most of the vegetation is evergreen. Grasses predominate the lowland plains and the eastern flanks of the lower slopes of the Southern Alps.
Due to isolation from other landmasses and lack of predatory mammals in the early times birds, bats, and reptiles flourished. Without predators, many bird
