New Zealand Archives | Te Papa’s Blog

Crabeater seals and their mysterious attraction to the Hutt River (the sequel)

On: 24 Jul 2019

About three years ago, vertebrate curator Colin Miskelly made the ‘rash’ claim that the best bet for seeing a crabeater seal in New Zealand was to visit the mouth of the Hutt River in Wellington Harbour – and wait approximately 25 years. But one showed up there a few days ago. Colin gives his thoughts on why they come here. Read more

New Zealand gains a fern genus named after the Chinese imperial guard, Hiya

By: Leon Perrie

On: 12 Oct 2018

Botanist Leon Perrie recently posted about the desirability of minimising taxonomic name changes. He writes here about the need to change the name of a fern to reflect its newly discovered evolutionary relationships.Read more

Heidi Meudt taking some close-up photos of a large plant of Myosotis macrantha in the Matiri Range, Kahurangi National Park. Photo by Ant Kusabs @ Te Papa. SP106587

Searching in needles and haystacks for forget-me-nots

By: Heidi Meudt

On: 20 Aug 2018

Read about Botanists Heidi Meudt and Antony Kusabs epic 14-day forget-me-not field work adventure. Highlights include solving a plant identification mystery and finding a plant that hadn’t been collected in almost a century.Read more