"The isolation of New Zealand from other lands allowed the survival of animals and plants from the time of the dinosaurs. Ancient tree ferns, plants that produce spores rather than seeds, and primitive relatives of pine trees still grow in the forests. Among the unusual creatures that still live in New Zealand are flightless ground-dwelling birds and ancient reptiles that have hardly evolved in the past 220 million years. New Zealand is like a Jurassic Ark, containing the last survivors of a time long passed."