Question:
How can Australia have lot of Venomous animals but New Zealand doesn't have any ?
anonymous
1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
How can Australia have lot of Venomous animals but New Zealand doesn't have any ?
Eleven answers:
mareeclara
2011-11-18 12:44:58 UTC
While Nz is technically made up of the waste of Australia, it has been isolated for 60-80million years which even in geological terms is a decent amount of time.



I think both Australia and Nz have both been moving north in all that time as well, so they have come up from the south. The temperature difference would account for most differences in the animals with crocodiles and snakes needing warmer temperatures to survive.



The spider thing is a little different. NZ does have the native Katapo which is related to the Australian redback but it is rare in NZ, only living on some east coast beaches in driftwood (the only one I have ever seen was at university in the laboratory..and I have lived on the east coast my entire life!)...AND I don't think it has actually ever killed anyone.



We do have several other spiders that have come over from Australia..eg I believe there are a couple of redback communities in the North Island...There is also the white tail spider is quite common, which is not poisonous as such but the bite gets infected easily.

Perhaps the reasons for being poisonous arose after the split from Australia, in that there were more things to kill? NZ also has no native land mammals apart from 2 species of bat, while Australia has quite a few things hopping around (marsupials etc).



While some of these poisonsous things may have been present (or ancestors of) on NZ they may have lost the need to poisonous, not evolved it at all or the speices died out.
anonymous
2011-11-18 16:25:16 UTC
See ! I knew those Maoris had a weird diet ...until white settlement introduction of sheep to NZ natives ate mainly local fauna & cleaned the joint out..
anonymous
2011-11-18 03:52:43 UTC
most Venomous animals found in the tropics
cc_of_0z
2011-11-18 04:20:12 UTC
New Zealand is too far south and too far across the Tasman Sea for them to reach there.
anonymous
2016-11-30 01:59:15 UTC
it must be because of the hotter climate, provided that poisonous organisms seem to savor the hotter climates. Me, not believing in evolution myself have no actual answer to they're "evolutionary previous."
sir cnqaus
2011-11-18 04:15:23 UTC
Venomous creatures don't do vowels like that.
anonymous
2011-11-18 16:25:37 UTC
Not true.



We also have a species of centipede which is highly venomous.



Mareeclara's explanation above me, is absolutely correct.

I second that.
anonymous
2011-11-18 07:14:32 UTC
The Maoris haka scared everything away.
anonymous
2011-11-18 08:37:29 UTC
7 hours ago



Because they don't need those FunneI-web spider as tactical Iethal weapon.



EDIT: It's because NZ have colder climate / harsh winter climates
fruitsalad
2011-11-18 04:34:24 UTC
New Zealand's flora and fauna is completely different to Australia's. Mammals (other than bats) never made it to NZ. NZ and Australia are too far apart to move from one to the other so life there evolved completely independantly of each other.
just me
2011-11-18 04:48:06 UTC
what Venomous animals? we have none

a few snakes & a couple of spiders & platypus is all we have here & none of them are animals


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