A line-drawn map of a garden plan in front of a large building.

Nancy Adams was a key player in the early decades of the Dominion Museum (predecessor to Te Papa), making substantial curatorial contributions to collections spanning from colonial history to botany and producing illustrations, now a valuable part of the Te Papa Art collection. As Lucia Adams and Margo Montes de Oca discovered during their summer research this year, traces of her influence and curatorial eye can be found not only in Te Papa’s archives but also in the outside world, specifically in the gardens by the old Dominion Museum building in Buckle Street.Read more

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In: Art, Behind the scenes, History, Science

Many of New Zealand’s native orchids need our help to secure their long-term survival, but it is hard to help when we know so little about them. Master’s student Rebecca Greenwood (recipient of Te Papa Foundation Orchid Conservation Scholarship) is embarking on research to explore the pollinators and fungal-root interactions of a small group of spider orchids from south Auckland. Read more

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The warmer months are, in many respects, the ideal time for enjoying nature, including connecting with the amazing diversity of plants around us. This time last year, Curator Botany Leon Perrie was traversing the country to get the final photos for the fern guidebook he co-authored with Patrick Brownsey.Read more

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With our small size and population, Aotearoa New Zealand doesn’t often top global charts. However, in 2024, a discovery from our country became the most popular observation on the iNaturalist platform, outshining over 50 million other observations made that year! Te Papa Scientist Lara Shepherd discusses a few of New Zealand’s most notable iNaturalist findings of the last year.Read more

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Te Papa vertebrates curator Colin Miskelly recently spent 3 days on Mana Island following a conservation dog searching for well-concealed petrels in the lush vegetation. He kindly agreed to share a ‘blog with a dog’ with us. Miro is a 4-year-old German short-haired pointer cross. He is one of theRead more

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Aotearoa New Zealand is a hot spot for forget-me-nots (genus Myosotis), with about 50 species found here and nowhere else. Te Papa Botany Curator Heidi Meudt teamed up with botanist Jessie Prebble from Manaaki Whenua, and Massey University scientists Jennifer Tate, Sofie Pearson, and Weixuan Ning to generate and analyse quite a bit of new genetic data to study the taxonomy and relationships of endemic forget-me-nots. Their new paper paints a complex yet compelling picture of how these species have evolved and radiated throughout the mountains of Aotearoa New Zealand, and makes an important contribution to their taxonomic revision.Read more

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In: Collections Online, Science
A man is crouching down by some bushes and is holding a bird in one hand.

We are dedicating this blog post to acknowledge two honours recently bestowed on one of our own, Curator Vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly. He has been made a Fellow of the Ornithological Society of New Zealand and received the New Zealand Association of Scientists Cranwell Medal. A huge congratulations on these achievements, Colin!Read more

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In: Behind the scenes, Science

Landhoppers are an important, but often overlooked, component of our invertebrate fauna. Northland entomologists Olly Ball and Steve Pohe teamed up with Te Papa geneticist Lara Shepherd and University College Cork’s amphipod expert Alan Myer to summarise the current knowledge of New Zealand’s landhoppers. Their new paper shows that landhoppers are far more diverse than we thought, with many new species hiding right under our feet.Read more

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