Each year, several biology and ecology postgraduate students are co-supervised by Te Papa natural history researchers. One of these students, Weixuan Ning, has completed his PhD at Massey University in Plant Biology. His co-supervisors – Botany Curator Heidi Meudt and Associate Professor Jen Tate – talk about his time as a Massey and Te Papa student, and the mahi he has been involved in.Read more

In January 2023, Te Papa Botany Curator Heidi Meudt was one of a team of Aotearoa New Zealand botanists and crew who travelled to Motu Maha Auckland Islands to undertake botanical research and make new collections. Here, she provides an overview of Motu Maha Auckland Islands, how and why they travelled there, and an introduction to this blog series about their 2023 Strannik Auckland Island Expedition.Read more

Identifying a kowhai plant using observation, Photographer: Te Papa, © Te Papa

Throughout 2015, young children from three Wellington regional Early Childhood Centres (ECE) have been thinking and working as scientists as part of the ‘It’s a Bugs Life’ partnership project with Te Papa Education. In celebration of the mahi (work), their teachers and educators from Te Papa arranged for the children to come and meet with more experienced scientistsRead more

Looking at a larger species of frog, Photographer: Amanda Rodgers, © Te Papa

Throughout 2015, young children from three Wellington regional Early Childhood Centres (ECE) have been thinking and working as scientists as part of the ‘It’s a Bugs Life’ partnership project with Te Papa Education. In celebration of the mahi (work), their teachers and educators from Te Papa arranged for the children to come and meet with more experienced scientistsRead more

Ricardo sharing about beetles, Photographer: Imagine Childcare, © Te Papa

Throughout 2015, young children from three Wellington regional Early Childhood Centres (ECE) have been thinking and working as scientists as part of the ‘It’s a Bugs Life’ partnership project with Te Papa Education. In celebration of the mahi (work), their teachers and educators from Te Papa arranged for the children to come and meet with more experienced scientistsRead more

I’ve been enjoying our scientist’s fieldwork posts.  We have scientist’s photographs from several historic field trips in the photography collection.  My favourites are in this photo album from the 1907 Expedition to the Subantarctic Islands.  The Expedition was initiated by the Canterbury Philosophical Institute with support from the Government, and studied plants, animals, soilsRead more

Scientists preparing video unit before its deployment at 1200 m depth. March 2010, Three Kings Islands. Te Papa, photograph by Vincent Zintzen

The start of a new sampling campaign is always a very exciting moment for scientists. After months of careful preparations, our fourth deep-sea sampling station is becoming a reality. In three days, Carl, Tom and myself from Te Papa are joining our boat the Star Keys, her crew and two other scientists from MasseyRead more