Geography of New Caledonia a refugium, in effect a biological "Noah's Ark", an island home to both unique living plants and animals and also to its own special fossil endowment. Birds such as the crested and almost flightless kagu (French, "cagou") "Rhynochetos jubatus", whose closest relative may be the distantly related sunbittern of South America, and plants such as "Amborella trichopoda", the only known member of the most basal living branch of flowering plants, make this island a treasure trove and a critical concern for biologists and conservationists. The island was home to horned fossil turtles ("Meiolania mackayi") and terrestrial fossil crocodiles ("Mekosuchus inexpectatus")
Creature type (Dungeons & Dragons) a change to an animal creature that increases its Intelligence or grants it additional abilities, the designer is encouraged to also change the creature's type, usually from animal to magical beast. When real world animals are rendered as vermin (see below) in D&D, they have no Intelligence scores at all. In 3rd edition, the beast type was used for nonhistoric and fantastic, but not necessarily magical vertebrates. The beast type was merged into the animal type in 3.5 edition. A construct is either an animated object of some sort, or an artificially crafted creature. Most construct are mindless automatons, obeying