Did Kauri (Agathis: Araucariaceae) Really Survive the Oligocene Drowning of New Zealand?

New Zealand (NZ) is both a Gondwanan continental fragment and a geologically active oceanic island, and hence, unravelling the origins and diversification of its biota has been considered important to biogeographic theory more generally (Nelson 1975). For instance, given this dual nature, the modern NZ land mass provides an ideal setting to consider the relative contribution of vicariance (NZ is believed to have separated from the Gondwanan supercontinent c. 80 Ma; but see, e.g., Ladiges and Cantrill 2007, who suggest more recent terrestrial connections between Australia and NZ) ver sus more recent transoceanic long-distance dispersal in shaping biogeographic patterns (Crisp 2008; Wallis and Trewick 2008). Following its rifting from Gondwana, crustal thinning resulted in progressive submergence of the plate that carried NZ culminating in the Oligocene drowning (c. 34-24 Ma) when the emergent landmass of what would become NZ was reduced to a small