Members of our field team trekking across a steep and colourful scree in the Livingstone Mountains. Photo by Geoff Rogers January 2022.

In January 2022, our Botany Curator Heidi Meudt went on a chock-a-block seven-day field trip to Southland with Department of Conservation botanist Brian Rance and several others. The aim of this trip was to collect several species of forget-me-nots growing in the ultramafic Livingstone Mountains and nearby hills. Heidi talks about what they were looking for and the environment the forget-me-nots were growing in. Read more

Madi Ojala is a Museum and Heritage Studies student at Victoria University who has been completing a Summer Internship at Te Papa. She discusses Adkin’s geological excursions and the appeal of working with Adkin’s prints, albums and diaries.Read more

Dr Hamish Campbell, Te Papa’s geologist in residence from GNS Science, shares his experience witnessing the green lights in the sky following the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake. Green sheet lightning I was driving home to Wellington from Auckland late on Sunday night after having had dinner in Taupo with Dinah and ourRead 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

Te Papa’s curator of terrestrial vertebrates Dr Colin Miskelly tells the fifth part of the unfolding story of the emperor penguin that went where none had gone before (at least in the age of digital media). Colin accompanied Department of Conservation staff to Peka Peka Beach on the morning ofRead more