Victoria University summer scholar Laura Wilson has spent two months sorting through a box of bones and dirt. The aim? To identify and catalogue the huge array of species represented in Martinborough’s Cave of Bones.Read more
A single specimen of toromiro – a close relative of our own kōwhai and extinct in the wild – has been discovered in our botany collection, where it’s been kept safe for 150 years.Read more
Would you have the patience to spend 10 years trying to find something practically invisible? Botanist Carlos Lehnebach recently discovered his ‘holy grail’ – a collection of tiny ghost orchids in the Wellington region. Read more
Storing collections in the right space and environment is incredibly important in museums – so would you be surprised to see natural history specimens stored in colourful vintage cigarette packets? Curator Alan Tennyson and conservator Robert Clendon shed light on past practice. Modern museum storage involves rows and rows ofRead more
Fossilised bird grave sites are common in New Zealand, but one particular cave in Martinborough has revealed thousands of bones of flightless birds who plunged to their deaths.Read more
Imaging specialist, Jean-Claude Stahl, has been getting to grips with our new microscope which can take incredibly sharp pictures of shells as tiny as a grain of sand.Read more
