Mouse-like creature saves New Zealand and rewrites history:
New Zealand has long been thought to be a rare example of a land mass that evolved without land mammals after it separated from the ancient “supercontinent” of Gondwana about 82 million years ago.Until now, decades of searching had shown no hint that furry, warm-blooded animals had ever trodden on Kiwi soil, despite them having thrived so widely in other lands. That picture is changed by the tiny fossilised bones — part of two jaws and a leg — that belonged to a unique land animal unlike any other mammal known. The bones of the creature, between the size of a mouse and a rat, were unearthed from the rich St Bathans fossil bed, in the Central Otago region of South Island and the findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.