• Over-looked for a century: Macquarie Island shag added to the New Zealand list

    Curator Colin Miskelly shares his research resulting in the addition of a new (or old) bird to the official New Zealand bird list.

  • A lady crosses a boardwalk in a barren red-earth landscape

    A nature wonderland at Norfolk Island

    Head of Science Susan Waugh describes her trip to Phillip Island, a few kilometres offshore from Norfolk Island, to study the Kermadec petrel.

  • Fakaofo Atoll Tokelau

    Community in Tokelau: Learning from ‘atoll life’

    As part of Tokelauan Language Week, Media producer Kate Whitley explores the photos of Glenn Jowitt and talks with Paula Faiva about growing up in Tokelau and the importance of the inati (equal portions) system that underpins island life.

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In 2015, ecologists Chris Stowe and Claire Newell found a strange fern during a vegetation survey in Whirinaki Forest, in the eastern North Island. They sent a frond to Te Papa’s fern experts Leon Perrie and Patrick Brownsey, who were also puzzled. This fern was clearly a Dicksonia tree fern but didn’t match any known species. Was it a new species?Read more

Bill Culbert, Croagnes, 1978, gelatin silver print, Te Papa (O.003931)

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New Zealand expatriate artist Bill Culbert passed away on 28 March 2019. Here, curator of photography Athol McCredie, and Curator of Modern & Contemporary Māori & Indigenous Art, Megan Tamati-Quennell, reflect on some aspects of Culbert’s work. Read more

Robert wearing blue gloves holds a copper knife

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Conservator Robert Clendon takes us through the conservation techniques he’s using on some of the international material in our collections – two Greek objects around 2,500 years old, and a 1894 copy of the famous Portland Vase.Read more