1YoT: Animals of New Zealand

We saw so many animals on our New Zealand roadtrip. Especially birds. New Zealand is a bird paradise, home to tons of beautiful, unique, often endemic birds. New Zealand is also a sea life paradise, and while we didn’t go in the water much, we did go to several beaches, and saw lots of animal life there.

New Zealand is not a mammal paradise. In fact there are no mammals native to New Zealand, every mammal on the islands was brought by humans: the Maori brought dogs and Europeans brought everything else. Despite this, Inna and I still saw a decent amount of mammals on our roadtrip.

We also saw insects and crustaceans and other weird animals; we saw pretty much everything but amphibians and reptiles.

And this is the post where we show them!

Like my Animals of North America post, this post will be divided by region. This post will also exclude pets and zoo animals. Farm animals will included, but they will be noted with a *. Finally, as with everywhere, New Zealand has a lot of insects. Therefore, insects will only be included here if they are unique/notable or if we took a picture of them.

Alright, enough introduction, lets get to the pictures!

ALL ACROSS NEW ZEALAND

The following animals we saw all over New Zealand. Rather than listing them everywhere, I’ll include them here. These animals include:

Hawks, horses*, cows*, goats*, sheep*, chickens*, lots of other birds

We saw hawks everywhere but it was difficult to get a picture of them. At one point, near Tongariro, we even saw one carrying the carcass of an animal it killed. I wish we could have gotten a picture of that!

In the competition for animals we’ve seen the most during our year of travel, I think cows come in second, after dogs. We definitely saw a lot in New Zealand, and this was true even before we visited the dairy farm on the southern island.

We’ve also seen a lot of pigs, chickens, and goats during our year of travel, but not as many as we’ve seen cows.

NEAR EGMONT

Rabbits, leaf bugs, mussels, some weird tide pool pod animal, a dead jellyfish, a fish skeleton

We didn’t see any animals in Egmont National Park, probably because it was raining almost our entire visit. But we saw lots of animals on the beaches near the park. Above are mussels we found in a tidepool, and leaf bug in the sand nearby.

This is the weird tide pool pod animal we saw. What the heck is that thing?

A dead fish and a dead jellyfish. The fish skeleton was particularly interesting, we’d never seen anything like it!

WAITOMO

Glowworms, deer*, roosters*, wild turkeys

Waitomo is famous for its glowworms, and we saw a lot of them. They were one of the most unique animals we’ve ever seen.

Wild turkeys hanging out outside the glowworm cave.

This was my favorite animal from all of New Zealand. Never have I gotten so close to a deer before; at one point he was only inches from my face! I got to pet her, which was so cool, and looking into her eyes was mesmerizing.

The deer actually came closer than this, but beyond this my camera wasn’t able to focus.

KAWAKAWA BAY

Sand dollars, mussels, starfish, crabs, more dead jellyfish

Kawakawa Bay was teeming with sea life, although much of is was dead, or at least seemed dead to us.

This guy was definitely dead. Look at the size of him!

ROTORUA

hedgehog, black swan, ducks, pukeko

The deer may have been my favorite animal but this one was the cutest. This is a hedgehog, an invasive species and technically a pest, but New Zealanders like them because they are so adorable.

A black swan and some ducks. We didn’t get a picture of the pukeko; he was the most interesting bird we saw in Rotorua but unfortunately he didn’t hang around for photographs.

GOLDEN BAY

Seals, peacocks, crabs, more dead jellyfish, other tide pool animals, alpacas*, spiderwebs (but no spiders)

We saw three seals at Golden Bay’s Wharariki Beach. One was in the beach’s lagoon and the other two were trying to join him, but he kept fighting them off.

What a beauty! Later, in Kuala Lumpur, we would see one of these guys with his feathers expanded. It was incredible.

Another dead jellyfish and some tide pool animals. Can you spot the crab in the bottom photograph?

Strange looking spider web. What’s going on here?

THE SOUTHERN ALPS

Bellbirds, wekas, keas, alpacas*, donkeys*, deer*

Wekas, small, flightless, endemic to New Zealand birds, were all over this area. Add to this the bird’s bold and curious personality, and they were very easy to spot.

This bird, a kea, is the world’s only alpine parrot and was without a doubt the most beautiful bird we saw in New Zealand.

Remember the hedgehog in Rotorua, the one I said was the cutest animal we saw on our roadtrip? Well I lied, he was the second cutest. This guy was the cutest, a curious alpaca we found watching cars go by on the highway.

And that marks the end of the animals we saw in New Zealand. Unfortunately, we didn’t see New Zealand’s most famous animal, the kiwi, but most people don’t, as they are very rare. However, we did see several stuffed kiwis, both at Tongariro and in Christchurch’s Canterbury Museum. And even though we missed live kiwis, we really enjoyed the animals we saw; seeing animals in their natural habitat is so exciting! It is one of Inna and my favorite things to do while traveling!