If you have ever spent time watching the gannets at Cape Kidnappers in Hawke’s Bay, you would have gathered that seaweed, or Carpophyllum, is a highly desirable resource, something gannets are prepared to risk life and wing for....
This insect was snapped by New Zealand Geographic Trust’s inaugural young gun Bryce McQuillan, while holidaying in Port Waikato over Christmas. McQuillan thought it was a weta, although the presence of wings made him wonder whether it was a weta-looking cricket....
This is part of the genetic fingerprint encoded upon the mitochondrion surrounding every cell in my body. It is the same as that of my mother, and probably her mother as well. It reveals that I belong to haplogroup H*, a group commonly found in northern Europe, which is no surprise as my great great […]...
Ever wondered why your mouth develops a furry feeling between brushes? This dental floss provides the answer. Biofilms—biological mats containing vast ecosystems of exotic creatures—adhere to wet surfaces: river rocks, bathroom tiles, even teeth!...
Thousands of young New Zealanders have been tested by the indiscriminate justice of the elements on board the Spirit of New Zealand. Gareth Cooke braces himself against one of the worst storms of the decade to record the voyage of 40 young trainees on the greatest test of their lives....
The Hokianga is a harbour steeped in history. Maori call it “the nest of the northern tribes” because it was here that their great voyaging ancestor, Kupe, made landfall from Hawaiki, and here that his descendants settled. Hokianga has been a nest for Europeans, too. Over the past two centuries, sawmillers, shipbuilders, missionaries, traders, farmers, […]...
What is a brightly coloured parakeet whose nearest ancestors live in the tropics, doing in the company of penguins in the subantarctic? Kakariki, New Zealand’s endemic parakeets, break all the rules....
Somewhere, during my lifelong speculations on the History of the Future, the Science of Absurdities and the Geometry of Invisibility, I stumbled across a perfectly Factual Geography of Cricket. Even those who say they cannot get their heads around the simple notion that a cricket team is in until it is out, whereupon a second […]...
Photographer Rod Morris screeched to a halt and leapt from his car with a cardboard box in hand and his teenage daughter Rachel (above) in tow. Tottering across the school field, unaware of the fast approaching marauders, was a ship rat. Closing quickly, the pair fanned out in a well-practiced pincer movement. The rat had nowhere […]...
