page_title: Oceanian realm
section_title: Fauna
hierarchical_section_title: Oceanian realm / Flora and fauna / Fauna
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail from File:Rhynochetos_jubatus02.jpg
context_page_description: The Oceanian realm is one of the World Wildlife Fund biogeographic realms, and is unique in not including any continental land mass. It is the smallest in land of an area of the WWF realms.
  This realm includes the islands of the Pacific Ocean in: Micronesia, the Fijian Islands, the Hawaiian islands, and Polynesia. New Zealand, Australia, and most of Melanesia including New Guinea, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and New Caledonia are included within the Australasian realm.
  Conversely, New Guinea, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and New Zealand are included in the Oceanian realm in the classification scheme developed by Miklos Udvardy in 1975.
context_section_description: Dispersal across the ocean is difficult for most land animals, and Oceania has relatively few indigenous land animals compared to other realms. Certain types of animals that are ecologically important on the continental realms, like large land predators and grazing mammals, were entirely absent from the islands of Oceania until humans brought them. Birds are relatively common, including many seabirds and some species of land birds whose ancestors may have been blown out to sea by storms. Some birds evolved into flightless species after their ancestors arrived, including several species of rails.  A number of islands have indigenous lizards, including geckoes and skinks, whose ancestors probably arrived on floating rafts of vegetation washed out to sea by storms. With the exception of bats, which live on most of the island groups, there are few if any indigenous mammal species in Oceania.
caption: Kagu (Rhynochetos jubatus), a flightless bird from New Caledonia
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