Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand abstracts

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Changes in the landsnail fauna of Lady Alice Island, northeastern New Zealand

F. J. Brook*

A small coastal dunefield on Lady Alice Island off northern New Zealand incorporates a stratigraphic record of the historic period and much if not all of the period of prehistoric Maori occupation of the island. Fossil landsnail faunas from the dunefield are closely comparable with those from present-day dune shrubland habitats and differ from contiguous hillslope forest and shrubland faunas. Three of the landsnail species are no longer extant on Lady Alice Island. Two are large species (Amborhytida tarangensis, Placostylus hongii) that are inferred to have become extinct following the introduction of kiore (Rattus exulans) to the island. Failure to find any snail shells with breakages characteristic of rat predation suggests that kiore may not have established on the island until the early 19th century. The other, smaller species of landsnail (Phrixgnathus paralaomiformis) probably became extinct in the late 19th or early 20th century as a result of habitat disturbance from fires and cattle.

Keywords  landsnails; coastal dunes; islands; Holocene; prehistoric; extinction; Rattus exulans

(c) Journal of The Royal Society of New Zealand,

Volume 29, Number 2, June 1999, pp 135-157

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (1943K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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