Wandle

Herds of wandles roam the grasslands of South Island in leisurely moving, unconcerned herds. From an evolutionary point of view they have reached a final stage. Any influx of animals from other realms would now be a disaster for them, since they have evolved in total isolation. They are low in intelligence, are not adapted in any way for defence against predators (though their young actually have enemies), and could not outrun a meat-eater if they happened to meet one. Nor could they face competition from the more efficient grass-eaters that exist elsewhere.

The Wandle, Pervagarus altus, is a large, flightless, wingless, bipedal, herbivorous, moa-like pterosaur that lives in the Canterbury-Otago tussock grasslands of South Island, Aotearoa, in The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution.

If there are no ground-dwelling flesh-eaters, as is the case on the Aotearoa islands, many flying creatures may abandon their powers of flight and take up a ground-dwelling existence. In these areas most of the habitats on the ground may be occupied by animals whose ancestors once flew. On South Island there are large areas of grassland to the east of the central mountain chain of the Southern Alps. These are grazed by a flightless pterosaur that is related to the kloon. This is the wandle and it is quite a large animal, being about 2 meters (6 feet) high at the hips. Like the kloon, its herbivorous diet has meant that all similarity to the carnivorous flying ancestor has been lost. Its face has taken on the appearance of one of the sprintosaurs because it must accommodate a similar tooth pattern and jaw mechanism to allow it to eat the same food. Its specializations are similar to those of the terrestrial pterosaurs, such as the flarps, of Africa.

Many species of wandle exist at different altitudes between the mountains and the plains, and they all eat slightly different foods (the tall grasses of the lowlands, or the shorter grasses of the foothills). One species lives even higher up and eats alpine vegetation. They are all slow-moving creatures. With no large meat-eating animals present they have not evolved defensive mechanisms such as armor, and have no need to be physically adapted for speed. The appearance of such an animal is always rather bizarre because it seems so unlike anything that exists under the normal environmental constraints that influence animal life over the rest of the world.