There’s a fishy theme to the blog this week, with excitement building about the sunfish science that Te Papa’s scientists are conducting next week. It’s a good time to ask: Why do we care about sunfishes? Why does Te Papa keep specimens at all? As a non-ichthyologist (fish scientist) IRead more
Kia orana e kia manuia tatou katoatoa, In this third blogpost of Te Epetoma o te Reo Māori Kuki Airani – Cook Islands Māori Language week, Grace Hutton (Collection Manager Pacific Cultures) shares with us some wonderful images taken by George Crummer, a photographer who worked in the Cook Islands in the late nineteenthRead more
Te Papa recently received a rare sunfish specimen from Auckland Museum, so we decided to find out more about these mysterious ocean-dwelling animals. Here are our fascinating facts: 1.Sunfish don’t have a tail! Some people call them a ‘gigantic swimming head’ (which seems a bit rude). Instead of a tailRead more
“Matariki Ahunga Nui – Matariki is a provider of abundant resources” This recent acquisition (purchased June 2013) is a tukutuku tūrapa, or panel named ‘Matariki’. It was woven to acknowledge the Maori New Year by master weaver Sonia Snowden (Ngāti Wai, Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Whātua, Ngā Puhi). It is made of kiekie, pīngao ,Read more
What’s fishy, heavy, rarely seen and now at Te Papa? A sunfish – the world’s heaviest bony fish! This is a common sunfish, also called an ocean sunfish. Our specimen is the rarer sharp-tailed sunfish. When Andrew Stewart got an email with some very exciting pictures from Tom Trnski atRead more
I first saw the movie Jurassic Park as a high school student when it was released 20 years ago. At the time it led to a sudden rise in the number of children obsessed with dinosaurs and wanting to be palaeontologists. But for me it was all about the scientists workingRead more
This week is Te Epetoma o te Reo Māori Kuki Airani – Cook Islands Māori Language week. the theme for this week is , “Tōku Reo Tōku Tango: My Language Is My Foundation”. As part of this weeks celebrations, Te Papa’s Pacific Cultures curators (and a guest writer or two)Read more
Do you know where any of the locations in these photographs are? If so, please leave a comment in the section at the bottom of the post along with the image number. 1) Does this mural still exist? 2) Like the one above, this mural might have been painted over or the building knocked down… 3) ARead more
What do they think of it? Kura Pounamu exhibition tours China Kura Pounamu, the largest exhibition of taonga pounamu or ‘Māori jade treasures’ ever shown at Te Papa, was displayed from September 2009 to July 2011. As curator for the exhibition a favourite past time of mine was to sitRead more
‘It was twenty years ago today, that Sergeant Pepper taught the band to play’……. Time has a funny way of sneaking up on us, and I felt this recently when I was invited by The Auckland Maritime Museum to talk about the series of photos I took 10 years ago,Read more
Recently I completed a two year project to conserve a unique Micronesian textile. It was such a pleasure to get acquainted with this very rare object with distinctive features–I was amazed to see that the colour changes in the patterned end of the cloth had been created by either interlinking or knotting warps of two colours together (photomicrograph image below),Read more
With all the earthquake-related activity in central New Zealand going on at the moment, we took the opportunity to put your questions about what’s going on under our feet to our resident Subject Expert – Earth Science, Hamish Campbell from GNS Science. Q: Did the January-May slow-slip event influence theRead more
Sixty years ago, Queen Elizabeth II is crowned (2 June 1953) Only selected officials were invited into Westminster Abbey to witness the formal coronation ceremony, so thousands of people lined the route of the coronation porcession in order to see the Queen. Robert Buhler’s lithograph (above) depicts part of theRead more
It took many hours of sorting, registration, taxonomy review, preparation and coordination, then 12 long sessions in the imaging lab. Te Papa Science staff have now completed the online access for 2241 black & white engravings of plants collected on Captain Cook’s first voyage. The Te Papa Collection Online narratives about the Banks andRead more
Thirty years ago today, on 11 July 1983, American television host Bob Barker announced to the world that ‘Miss New Zealand, Miss Lorraine Downes, is now Miss Universe 1983’. It was a historic moment for the competition organisers, for New Zealand and for the 19 year old model with the winningRead more
