Tag Archives: fieldwork

Bio-blitzing Mana

21 February 2011 – 12.11pm

The Mana Bioblitz  is currently on.

A Bioblitz is a count of all the species in an area. I recently visited Mana Island with Antony, one of Te Papa’s Botany Collection Managers, to contribute to the botanical cause.

Inflorescence of Helminthotheca echiodes (oxtongue). Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

Azolla filiculoides, a floating aquatic fern. Red ponds are due to these ferns. Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

Modiola caroliniana (creeping mallow); in the mallow family. Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

Close up of the inflorescence of the daisy Achillea millefolium (yarrow). Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

Medicago arabica (spotted bur medick), a member of the pea family related to clover. Note the distinctive black markings on the leaflets. Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

The distinctive forked hairs on the leaves of Leontodon taraxacoides (hawkbit) distinguish it from similar dandelion-type plants. Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

Centaurium erythraea (centaury); a weed from the gentian family. Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

Antony being attacked by a head band of Calystegia silvatica (great bindweed). Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

The initial products of five hours on Mana Island: two herbarium presses containing specimens to be identified, plus a plastic bag full of seaweeds collected from beach drift for our phycological colleagues. Leon Perrie, © Te Papa.

By Leon Perrie | Posted in Field trips, Plants | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Bryophyte Workshop

25 January 2011 – 10.28am

Last December, three Te Papa botanists attended the 2010 John Child Bryophyte and Lichen Workshop, held in Riverton. This is one of the principal ways we acquire new plant specimens.

Liverwort Trichocolea mollissima. Photo by Leon Perrie.

Liverwort Plagiochila. Several sporophytes are evident, albeit enclosed within perianths. Each sporophyte has a black capsule, where the spores are made, and a whitish, fleshy stalk (the seta). Photo by Leon Perrie.

Liverwort Schistochila. Photo by Leon Perrie.

Moss Tayloria. Often grows on dung! Photo by Leon Perrie.

Moss Scorpidium cossonii (with thanks to Peter Beveridge for the identification), in an alpine seepage. Photo by Leon Perrie.

We are still processing the specimens we collected during the 2010 Workshop. Identification of these small plants can take some time, usually requiring microscopic examination.

From the 2009 Workshop, 575 specimens were accessioned into Te Papa’s herbarium.

By Leon Perrie | Posted in Field trips, Plants | Also tagged , , , | Comments (2)

Happy flowering holidays

22 December 2010 – 9.33am

If you get into the hills these summer holidays, you’ll find many plants are in flower. 

Many of New Zealand’s flowers aren’t particularly showy. But pay them closer investigation and many will reward you with a subtle beauty.

Here’s a selection from my just completed field-work throughout the South Island, where my pursuit of Gleichenia tangle-ferns led me up several mountains.

Celmisia daisy. This ‘flower’ is actually an inflorescence of many small flowers, which can be seen in the outer yellow whorl.

Helichrysum coral daisy.

Leonohebe (Veronica) cupressoides, a kind of 'whipcord' hebe.

Dolichoglottis daisy, yellow snow marguerite.

Thelymitra sun orchid.

By Leon Perrie | Posted in Plants | Also tagged , , | Comments (0)

Fieldtrip to Patea

10 December 2010 – 3.08pm
Patea Field Collection December 4 and 5

Simon and Bruce checking it out near Lake Rotorangi (Kristelle, 5/12/2010)

Last weekend, 4 and 5 December,  Bruce Marshall (Te Papa’s resident malacologist and Collection Manager Mollusca) and Simon Whittaker (Manager, Te Papa Collections) visited Kristelle Plimmer (Curator, Aotea Utanganui – Museum of South Taranaki) in Patea, and the three of them collected minute land snails (24 species found) and specimens of a minute freshwater snail at a seepage in the forest at Lake Rotorangi.

The freshwater snail is possibly Sororipyrgus kutukutu Haase, 2008, the holotype of which can be see on our collections on line site, but confirmation awaits study of the anatomy and DNA.

Sororipyrgus kutukutu Haase, 2008; holotype

Sororipyrgus kutukutu Haase, 2008; holotype

A further rich collection of tiny freshwater snails was made at a seepage in a cutting on Ball Road on the way to the Lake.

Next day they segued to the Patea River, where they collected specimens of the freshwater limpet Latia neritoides, the only light emitting freshwater mollusc in the world. That evening Bruce demonstrated its light production.

Bruce collecting tiny freshwater snails (length about 2.4 mm) from a seep in the forest at Lake Rotorangi (4/12/2010)

Bruce collecting tiny freshwater snails (length about 2.4 mm) from a seep in the forest at Lake Rotorangi (4/12/2010)

After this they visited Waverley Beach, where they viewed the spectacular, richly fossiliferous, 3.5 million year old Waverley Shellbed, exposed at the foot of the cliff to the north of the settlement.

Further north on the beach they viewed standing and fallen trees from a drowned fossil forest exposed by erosion, as well as fossil soils, thick peat layers and beds of seeds and leaves.

Bruce and Simon checking out the fossils in the Waverley Shellbed, north of the settlement at Waverley Beach. The trunks of the fossil trees from the drowned forest can be seen in the distance (Kristelle, 5/12/2010)

Bruce and Simon checking out the fossils in the Waverley Shellbed, north of the settlement at Waverley Beach. The trunks of the fossil trees from the drowned forest can be seen in the distance (Kristelle, 5/12/2010)

Bruce discovered casts of hitherto unknown bivalve in the sediment containing the trees, which had evidently been deposited in a swamp. The placename of nearby Waitotara, incidentally, is derived from trees from a fossil forest exposed in the Waitotara River.

Bruce looking for fossil bivalves in the sediment containing fossils tree from the drowned forest exposed on Waverley Beach (Kristelle, 5/12/2010)

Bruce looking for fossil bivalves in the sediment containing fossils tree from the drowned forest exposed on Waverley Beach (Kristelle, 5/12/2010)

By lucyhoffman | Posted in Collections Online, Fossils | Also tagged | Comments (2)

Kaikoura deep-sea field work: a few pictures

19 November 2010 – 9.48pm

Te Papa fish team is off Kaikoura onboard the MV Star Keys to study deep-sea fish fauna.

 

We are blessed with good weather since Wednesday which allows us to being close to the minimum number of samples we have to achieve. That’ excellent news!

I though I would show you some pictures aboard the Star Keys. You will see the Kaikoura range is superb in the background.

Early in the morning aboard the Star Keys, fully loaded with scientific gear (underwater video systems, fish traps and ropes). Te Papa, photograph by Vincent Zintzen.

Early in the morning aboard the Star Keys, fully loaded with scientific gear (underwater video systems, fish traps and ropes). Te Papa, photograph by Vincent Zintzen.

 

The Kaikoura range in the background.

The Kaikoura range in the background.

 

Deep-sea shark caught with the fish traps. Te Papa, photograph by Vincent Zintzen.

Deep-sea shark caught with the fish traps. Te Papa, photograph by Vincent Zintzen.

 

Fish trap being retrieved after deployment at 700m depth. Te Papa, photograph by Vincent Zintzen.

Fish trap being retrieved after deployment at 700m depth. Te Papa, photograph by Vincent Zintzen.

 

All the best,

Vincent

By Vincent Zintzen | Posted in Fish | Also tagged , , | Comments (2)

Vampires in the leaf litter

15 September 2010 – 10.02am

There’s trauma in this leaf litter – can you see it?!

Dangerous leaf litter. Photo by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

A downside to fieldwork in Australia is the number of things that will bite, impale, or otherwise injure.

A leech at attention, waiting for a meal to pass by. Photo by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Some of my unwanted Australian ‘friends’, that had been making themselves at home under my socks and long pants. Note the size difference between these post-feast leeches and the hungry one in the picture above. (No comments on my muscular legs please.) Photo by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

We had several wet days when the leeches were out in force. At one site, half of our group suffered a leech in the eye – unpleasant!

For me, this was a somewhat traumatic introduction to these creatures. In New Zealand leeches do not make a habit of feeding on humans (generally preferring stream invertebrates instead). Biting ticks were another part of the fauna that made our close acquaintance.

A harmless (from our perspective) python. However, a deadly taipan had slithered across the track as we drove into the site. Photo by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

The impressively armed leaf of what we believe is a Solanum (relative of tomato, potato, and poroporo). Photo by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

Spikes on the stems of rattan palms. These palms also had fine, hanging trendils, which were easy to walk into because they were hard to see, but difficult to subsequently escape because they had barbed spikes. Photos by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

A Dendrocnide stinger tree. This nettle-relative packs a particularly nasty poisonous punch if you have the misfortune to touch any part of it (including the trunk!). Not as ferocious-looking as our tree nettle, but I’m reliably informed the sting is worse. Photo by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

An echidna. A monotreme mammal like the platypus. Cute but spiky. Photo by Leon Perrie. © Te Papa.

By Leon Perrie | Posted in Ferns, Field trips, Plants | Also tagged , , | Comments (1)

Lancewood hunting

12 January 2009 – 4.13pm

Field-work is one of the best aspects of working as a Natural Environment curator at Te Papa. I get to spend about three weeks a year in the field collecting plant specimens.

tepapa4wd2

Te Papa’s 4WD. If seen outside Wellington, there is a good chance this vehicle is being used to collect plants, whales, or fossils.

I’ve recently returned from ten days field-work in the South Island, collecting samples for our research on lancewood (horoeka, Pseudopanax crassifolius) and fierce lancewood (P. ferox). This is in collaboration with Lara Shepherd from Massey University. Lancewood is a common forest tree and we are using DNA analyses to determine where it survived in New Zealand during the last glacial period. This follows our previous research on the forest fern Hooker’s spleenwort (Asplenium hookerianum), which seems to have survived throughout New Zealand, and conflicts with evidence that Metrosideros trees (rata and pohutukawa) were confined to only a few refugia.

Fierce lancewood, named for its bigger ‘teeth’ on the leaf margins, is more sparsely distributed that lancewood. Given the discontinuous distribution of fierce lancewood, we expected each population to exhibit its own diagnostic set of genetic variation. Preliminary results suggest this might be true for Auckland and Wellington populations, but, at this stage, we can’t genetically distinguish populations from the southern South Island, indicating the geographic discontinuity there is a geologically-recent phenomenon. We collected specimens to augment our existing sampling (the northern South Island, in particular, was a bit of a gap for us for both lancewood and fierce lancewood).

pseudopanax_ferox_juvenile_leaf1
Apex of a leaf from a juvenile fierce lancewood, showing the curious ‘paint-splash’ coloration. I have heard it hypothesised that the prominent white splashes draw attention to the marginal ‘teeth’, themselves a putative defence against moa herbivory.

The trip was largely successful, with the weather good and the plants cooperative (in that we could find them where they were supposed to be). We now have to process the samples in the laboratory, which isn’t nearly as much fun but still necessary if we are to address the questions we’re interested in.

pseudopanax_ferox_juvenile2

A juvenile of fierce lancewood.

By Leon Perrie | Posted in Plants, Pseudopanax | Also tagged , , , , | Comments (6)
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