Back in December 2013, four Te Papa Scientists ventured into the deep south on a 15 day expedition to the Snares Islands. Some of you may remember earlier Snares blog posts and you tube videos from this excursion. In order to provide a quick reference resource on Snares Islands botanyRead more
Would you scramble into a ‘horrible hole’ to count bird chicks? How about counting the regurgitated remains of a meal? It’s all in a day’s work for Alan Tennyson, a Te Papa scientist studying broad-billed prions (pararā). Can you mimic a bird as well as Alan can mimic a prion?Read more
Take a glimpse of this remote corner of New Zealand, and follow Te Papa’s scientists as they go scrambling up rocks and cliffs to carry out their research. Three kilometres to the west of the main Snares Islands lies the isolated Western Chain group. They are rarely visited, and canRead more
Te Papa scientists wanted to learn more about the plants on the Snares Islands, which have rarely been studied because the islands are so remote. The plants’ descriptive names tell us a lot about the species. There are tree daisies and Cook’s scurvy grass – and some species so littleRead more
The most abundant bird on the Snares Islands is the sooty shearwater (also known as the muttonbird or tītī). Four Te Papa scientists had the daunting task of counting over a million sooty shearwaters on the islands to determine the trends in their population. Watch the video to see howRead more
The wild and remote Snares Islands, 105km south-southwest of Stewart Island, are usually home only to a vast array of birds and sea life. In late 2013 the islands saw the arrival of four lucky Te Papa scientists to carry out a range of seabird and plant research projects. WatchRead more
One of our research goals on the Snares Islands was to collect non-vascular plants. Non-vascular plants include mosses, liverworts and hornworts (collectively known as bryophytes) and lichens. Mosses have two main life stages – the gametophyte stage and sporophyte stage. Both stages are visible in images on this post. The gametophyteRead more
At 2.00pm today, Tuesday 18th March, Te Papa scientists will be talking about their recent trip to the Snares Islands, and the wonderful wildlife they encountered. Watch Science Live: Expedition Snares Island via YouTube – and don’t forget to ask your questions! We’ve already had some great questions fromRead more
A Te Papa team recently visited the Snares Islands Nature Reserve, 105 km south-southwest of Stewart Island, where they completed a range of seabird and plant research projects. Here, Antony Kusabs (Collection Manager Sciences) describes his first impressions of the Snares Islands, his first trip to a New Zealand Sub-Antarctic island group. WatchRead more
Recently some of our scientists carried out fieldwork on the Snares Islands,100 kilometres south of Stewart Island. They’ll be talking about their work live on Science Live: Expedition Snares Island, 18th March, 2.00pm. But why do Te Papa scientists care about the Snares Islands? What’s so special about them thatRead more
Four Te Papa staff members visited the Snares Islands Nature Reserve for a fortnight in late 2013, undertaking a variety of seabird and plant research projects (see previous blogs listed below). The Snares Islands are famous for their birdlife, and here vertebrates curator Colin Miskelly looks at some of theRead more
100 kilometres south of Stewart Island, a small group of rocky islands jut abruptly from the surface of the ocean. These islands, wreathed in sea spray and surrounded by large cliffs, are known as the Snares Islands, and for a fortnight were home to four Te Papa scientists. The SnaresRead more
There are currently five recognised species of fern on the Snares Islands, the closest sub-antarctic island group to New Zealand. North East Island, the main island of the Snares group, slopes gently downhill from the tall, tussock covered western cliffs towards the forested east coast, creating four small catchments, which drain intoRead more
The vascular flora of the Snares Islands is limited, at only 22 species (including one hybrid Poa). Despite this, my first impression of the main island was an island covered with lush vegetation. And there are still some botanical challenges – we failed to locate the fern Histiopteris incisa for instance. Read more
This was one of the key questions that we were trying to answer when four Te Papa scientists – Colin Miskelly, Antony Kusabs, Jean-Claude Stahl and I – set off for the subantarctic Snares Islands in November-December 2013. The Snares are one of the world’s great seabird islands and broad-billedRead more
