In a remote pocket of ancient tropical rainforest in northern Sumatra live a unique group of orangutans so highly intelligent they use tools in their everyday life. Asia’s tropical rainforests are remarkable organisms which are home to a rich diversity of animals. In a remote corner of Sumatra’s lush forests, a group of orangutans reveals […]...
Asia is the continent of islands. On the islands of south east Asia, isolation has woven evolutionary magic, producing the most remarkable diversity of creatures....
Asia’s shorelines stretch from the world’s most extensive mangrove forests and coral reefs in Indonesia to the sub-arctic coast of northern Russia. In the mangroves saltwater crocodiles lie in wait for a careless monkey, on coral reefs tiny sea horses defend their territories, while in the icy rivers of the north a multitude of salmon […]...
A rich portrait of life and death at the vertical limit of mammalian life on Earth — the Himalayas — including the most intimate and extensive encounters with a wild snow leopard ever captured on film....
As winter’s icy fist unclenches, spring brings new life to an array of fascinating freshwater inhabitants in the water-blessed regions of Asia’s north eastern corners....
A dramatic and poignant portrayal of the fragile alliances and desperate strategies for survival adopted by three species of animals caught in the no-man’s land where the human and natural worlds collide....
Staying alive in Asia’s barren heartland of desert and dry grasslands is a challenge, yet many animals thrive. The Arid Heart explores life in the arid interior, revealing the secrets of surviving both searing summer heat and bitter winter cold....
Magazine
Issue 200
Jul - Aug 2026
Solar power
Horses of Huntly
Forget me not
Whaling
Red admirals
The blast of the harpoon may have given way to the click of the camera, but whales are still the cornerstone of commerce—and the subject of many a decorative mural—in the north Canterbury town of Kaikoura. In little more than a decade, marine ecotourism has transformed a coastal backwater into an international travel hotspot....
ICE. At one extreme, it is the humble cube which puts the clink in your drink on a hot summer’s afternoon. At the other, it is a major cog in the engine which drives the world’s weather. Furthermore, its behaviour over the ages may have played a pivotal role in human evolution. At the heart […]...
Health geographer Jesse Whitehead has been mapping New Zealanders’ access to healthcare, whether it’s the distance they have to travel to a vaccination clinic, or whether it would be more equitable to ensure vaccines are available at schools or GP clinics (it turns out that schools offer better coverage). These maps show the distance people […]...
Where can the city dweller look for the inexhaustible wild? Perhaps it lies closer than we think, on the flipside of the ordinary, along the unkempt edges of the familiar. An urban green space can become a site of pilgrimage, a place to discover a waterfall by moonlight....
Anthocyanins, the molecules that turn fruit red and blue, are usually produced at a particular time and for a particular purpose, such as when a plant wants to advertise the fact that its fruit is ripe, or during times of stress. Anthocyanins are particularly powerful anti-oxidants, those molecules that mop up the free radicals that […]...
