How do museum curators decide what specimens to keep, or to give to the beetles to be reduced to bones, or dispose of? As Natural History summer interns, Ben Carson and Tobia Dale, were tasked with the job of processing three recently acquired research collections from prominent herpetologists Ben Bell, Ruth Ainsworth, and Phil Bishop.Read more
The insect collection at Te Papa holds a hidden wealth of vibrant foreign specimens. Due to a reorganisation process, Technicians had a chance to rehouse and examine the foreign specimens. Natural History Technician Shaun Thompson talks about what he learned about our foreign insect collection.Read more
Curator of Invertebrates Rodrigo Salvador tells about the discovery of a small but important collection of land snails that remained unnoticed in our collections since the 1930s. Read more
What if we all had to work from home for an extended period? Many of the Natural History staff could research and write papers from home, but what about the people whose jobs normally involved handling specimens every day?Read more
Imaging specialist Jean-Claude Stahl explains why photographing a water bear is such a ‘bugbear’ and bug expert Phil Sirvid fills us in on exactly what a water bear is, and why they are one of the most indestructible creatures on the planet.Read more
Valevahalo was the main camp for our recent Solomon Islands’ expedition. Sited at about 800 m above sea level, it is deep in the jungle of the northern foothills of Guadalcanal’s Mount Popomanaseu. I was there for eight nights, with two additional nights at a satellite camp at the nearby Haviha River.Read more
An important function for Te Papa’s natural history collections is to document the plants and animals we have in New Zealand. What species are present, how can they be distinguished, and where do they occur? These questions need addressing before our biodiversity, both indigenous and exotic, can be managed inRead more
Te Papa Research Fellow Patrick Brownsey and I have just described a new species of fern, Lastreopsis kermadecensis. It only occurs on Raoul Island, which is the largest island in the Kermadec Islands group. Hence, the second part of the new species name! The Kermadec Islands are the most northernRead more
