This Wild South documentary examines why New Zealand’s wildlife is so unusual. The story begins with the country’s geological formation, as it peeled away from the Gondwana landmass, and follows its development that was shaped by volcanic eruptions and the slow grind of the Pacific and Indo-Australian tectonic plates. It explores how the land’s unique birds and insects — including kākāpō, kiwi, kākā, wētā, and moa — adapted to their environment and evolved their atypical features. The featured discovery of fossilised bird bones in the Honey Hill Cave in the Ōpārara Basin in the 1980s adds to the evolutionary picture.