Last week Te Papa Botany curator Leon Perrie and I attended the Uawa BioBlitz in Tolaga Bay. Organized by the Allan Wilson Centre and Groundtruth, the BioBlitz was an intense 24 hours of species discovery. Scientists from a variety of organisations were joined by members of the local community, includingRead more
Te Papa vertebrate curator Dr Colin Miskelly recently led a team that visited Takapourewa / Stephens Island Nature Reserve, to select and gather up 100 fairy prion chicks to move to Mana Island near Wellington. This is the fifth in a series of blogs about the project and the wildlifeRead more
Right from the beginning TEAL, NAC and later Air New Zealand produced travel bags that reveal the company’s name, colours and logo. As such they are important markers of the changing face of the airline. Air New Zealand 75 years. Our nation. The world. Connected has a selection of theseRead more
Feb. 14 is nigh! A valid reason To commemorate the season Of love and matters of the heart As expressed in works of art, Chosen from our fine collection And brought to you, with much affection! The Valentine card in the form that we send (and hopefully receive) today onlyRead more
Te Papa vertebrate curator Dr Colin Miskelly recently led a team that visited Takapourewa / Stephens Island Nature Reserve, to select and gather up 100 fairy prion chicks to move to Mana Island near Wellington. This is the fourth in a series of blogs about the project and the wildlifeRead more
On 16 October 2014 Te Papa hosted tyrannosaur expert Dr Stephen Brusatte who revealed the newest members of the tyrannosaur family to an enthusiastic audience. We heard about his global travels to dig up fossils and the latest research on tyrannosaur diversity and evolution. Only this year Steve helped describeRead more
Fairy prions are small burrow-nesting seabirds that breed in large colonies on many islands around New Zealand. The largest colony (of about 1.8 million pairs) is on Takapourewa / Stephens Island in the western approaches to Cook Strait. As part of a project to restore the ecology of Mana IslandRead more
For many people, Antarctica and the South Pole are synonymous. However, Antarctica refers to an entire continent, more than 6,000 km on its longest axis, while the Geographic South Pole is a specific point in the continent’s interior (i.e. the southern point of the axis around which the earth rotates).Read more
There was a high level of interest in my last blog about photographs from Te Papa’s collection that require more information. So here are some more where we need your sleuthing skills: Disappearing Waterfall? What happened to the Kakahi Falls, on the Whanganui River, not far downstream of Taumaranui? This photograph appears in many aRead more
The main attraction at Gould Bay – in fact the only reason the Gould Bay camp exists – is a large emperor penguin colony. On my first visit I counted just under 6300 live chicks, and estimated that there would have been about 7500 breeding pairs at the start ofRead more
Photographs tend to come to museums with little or no information attached. The ones below are planned for use in an upcoming Te Papa book on our photography collection. You can help us flesh out some detail on these old photos before it gets locked down in print. Military ManRead more
Te Papa vertebrate curator Dr Colin Miskelly recently led a team that visited Takapourewa / Stephens Island Nature Reserve, to select and gather up 100 fairy prion chicks to move to Mana Island near Wellington. This is the second in a series of blogs about the project and the wildlifeRead more
On my second visit to the Gould Bay emperor penguin colony, I flew there in a Basler DC3T aircraft, and returned to Union Glacier in a de Havilland DH6 Twin Otter. These are the predominant fixed-wing aircraft used for travel within Antarctica, and are the only aircraft used by ANIRead more
Summer holidays are over. Some schools have re-opened and offices have filled up with workers returning to their routines. As for Christmas – well that feels like ancient history now. But you can relive past holiday happiness by reading these joy-filled diary entries written by Horowhenua farmer, Leslie Adkin, describingRead more
Union Glacier camp was bulging at the seams in mid-November, with an Ilyushin delivering 54 marathon runners (2 of whom pulled out before the event), a few support staff and organisers, and a Chinese film crew. The annual Antarctic Ice Marathon has become big business, with all available places bookedRead more
