Science and environment
The age of fossil fuels is ending, and the world is entering the era of solar power. What matters now is how…
Fifteen years after kakaruwai were brought to Dunedin’s Orokonui Ecosanctuary, a new study shows the tiny…
In the world of academic publishing, there has been no more enjoyable read this year than a recent paper out…
For several years, kōtare, our native kingfishers, have been turning up at West Auckland rehab centre BirdCare…
On December 10, 2024, a juvenile bottlenose dolphin was reported tangled in fishing line near Riverhead, in…
Science and environment
Something strange is happening inside the Sun. In the last 40 years, the pattern of tiny sound waves produced…
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Scientists who spent nine years birdwatching in Wellington ecosanctuary Zealandia Te Māra a Tāne report that birds visit the flowers of kōtukutuku, our native tree fuchsia, 16.4 times an hour. That put it streaks ahead of any other plant in the forest, including tasty stalwarts kōwhai and harakeke. Seven species of native birds, especially tūī, […]...
Six years ago, Edith Amituanai visited a west Auckland park to find a group of siren cars blasting out the kind of music played in island nightclubs. Now, she’s practically a member of the Switch Hittaz. Sports stadiums would wish for the same atmosphere as a siren battle, she says: “There’s a lot of joy […]...
On November 9, 1997, three Department of Conservation biologists, Jeremy Carroll, Dave Barker and James Fraser, with trained bird dogs Bob, Gus and Fiddich, landed on 19 ha Jacquemart Island, just south of Campbell Island. In typical subantarctic fashion, it was raining heavily, with regular bursts of snow, and the wind was 30 knots. The group […]...
Science and environment
“It won’t sort itself out,” warns energy expert Nathan Surendran....
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Science and environment
Decades ago, red admiral butterflies all but abandoned Auckland city. Now, united by two retirees...
Science and environment
A century ago, in a human frenzy for oil, hundreds of thousands of blue whales...
Science and environment
The exquisitely rare native flower that refuses to disappear....
Science and environment
When life’s gone off the rails and the road home is hard, it helps to...
Science and environment
The age of fossil fuels is ending, and the world is entering the era of...
On December 10, 2024, a juvenile bottlenose dolphin was reported tangled in fishing line near Riverhead, in the upper reaches of the Waitematā Harbour. The dolphin couldn’t flex its tail properly, or dive, or chase fish. Its pod headed elsewhere. One larger dolphin stayed behind, and for the next month it stuck close, spending almost […]...
For several years, kōtare, our native kingfishers, have been turning up at West Auckland rehab centre BirdCare Aotearoa with a mysterious affliction: mouths laced with tiny, almost translucent worms. “It sort of looks like strings of saliva sticking between the roof and the bottom of the mouth,” says Catriona Robertson, a hospital manager at BirdCare. […]...
In the world of academic publishing, there has been no more enjoyable read this year than a recent paper out of Sweden titled ‘Geologists on the silver screen—the sequel’. Published by Geology Today, the analysis covers 141 films released between 1919 and 2023 and took a group of geologists more than 10 years to compile. It […]...
Something strange is happening inside the Sun. In the last 40 years, the pattern of tiny sound waves produced deep beneath the surface of our star has mysteriously changed, say scientists reporting in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. This solar activity fluctuates in intensity in reliable 11-year cycles, at times driving solar […]...
Fifteen years after kakaruwai were brought to Dunedin’s Orokonui Ecosanctuary, a new study shows the tiny robins are doing so well that they have booked up every bit of real estate and are now kicking juveniles into the surrounding bush. Researchers counted at least 23 of the friendly birds living up to 1.5 kilometres outside […]...
After being hunted to less than three per cent of their original population by commercial whalers, blue whales are once again being spotted around mainland New Zealand. Some 370 sightings have been logged in DOC’s marine mammal database in recent decades. Most of those are incidental sightings from tourism and commercial fishing boats, seismic survey […]...
Butterflies and moths are active in the middle of the day, and mostly through spring and summer. So that’s when Chrissie Ward, 77, goes for her transect walks. Once a week, right through every warm season since the spring of 2009, she has walked the same 4.5 kilometres around the outskirts of Nelson, following and […]...
For decades, young women of New Zealand marked their late teens with ceremonies that looked a lot like weddings....
OE McLeod with RM Briggs, CE Conway and O Ishizuka Geoscience Society of New Zealand, $75...
Mark Adams and Sarah Farrar, Massey University Press, $80...
Whales sing more when there’s oodles of food around, researchers have discovered. A team based at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute analysed whalesong picked up on hydrophones in the nutrient-rich seas off California. The first tapes were from 2015, when a marine heatwave was decimating the food web. That year, humpback whales sang on […]...
Remember the sky on New Year’s Day of 2020? Across the South Island the air was thick and hazy, the sky an eerie yellow. Satellite images showed a brown cloud of smoke from massive Australian bushfires stretching all the way across the Tasman. When it reached the North Island, clouds over Auckland turned an apocalyptic […]...
These days, it’s rare to spot a southern elephant seal in New Zealand. These hefty mammals—the males can reach five metres and 3.7 tonnes—are now resident only on remote subantarctic islands. But 800 years ago, these giants called Aotearoa home. Arriving on New Zealand shores, Polynesian voyagers would have encountered coastlines crowded with fur seals, sea […]...
Orchids are everywhere. New Zealand has well over 100 species; worldwide there are tens of thousands. “The only places where you don’t see orchids are in the Earth’s deserts and Antarctica,” says Carlos Lehnebach, an orchid botanist at Te Papa. Also, we’re obsessed with them. “There are a lot of people who are nutty about […]...
What sorts of birds are you likely to see if you tackle Te Araroa? After walking, as they say, “every f***ing inch” of the famous trail’s 3200 kilometres, methodically counting birds all the way, conservationist Colin Miskelly can tell you that mostly, there will be sparrows. The chirpy imports topped his tally at 12,500, more […]...