Lots of us care about saving the whales, but not many get as hands-on as technician Stephanie Ho. She’s spent the last nine months caring for whale bones in Te Papa’s collections. It’s a messy, smelly and painstaking job, but it’s protecting these important specimens for the future. Stephanie tells us more.Read more
When a southern right whale captured the imagination of Wellington last week with a bout of acrobatics in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour), Imaging Specialist Jean-Claude Stahl was there with his camera to capture some pretty epic moments. Here, he shares them and sheds some light on our new best friend.Read more
After a decade in North America, our Whales | Tohorā exhibition is making its way back south through the Pacific. For anyone who can’t recall the exhibition – it finished showing at Te Papa in May 2008. Here’s a brief recap from Pat Stodart, Touring Exhibition Manager.Read more
A Te Papa research team travelled to Dusky Sound: photographer Jean-Claude recalls a surprise encounter with bad-breathed whales. 15 November 2016. We had made good progress since leaving Doubtful Sound on the Southern Winds, the DOC boat that supports conservation programmes around southern New Zealand. We were now sailing pastRead more
A team of Te Papa scientists recently visited Dusky Sound as the first stage in an investigation of changes in biodiversity since Cook’s visit in 1773. Read more
Tabua (pronounced “tambua” – the b has a ‘mb’ sound) are pierced and braided whales’ teeth, originally taken from the lower jaw of sperm whales. Fijians consider them to be kavakaturanga (chiefly items). Pacific Cultures curator Sean Mallon highlights some personalised tabua from the collections.Read more
The first-ever Fiji language week begins today with the theme Noqu Vosa, Noqu iYau Talei: My Language, My Treasure. The Pacific Cultures curators will be blogging daily with Fiji-related stories from the collections and exhibitions at Te Papa. This is a tabua, a type of Fijian cultural valuable, made fromRead more
The Spade-toothed whale Mesoplodon traversii, is now known from 5 specimens, three of which are housed at Te Papa. With only one of these specimens a complete skeleton, the species is as rare as they come – even among beaked whales – the most elusive of all the world’s whales. WhalesRead more
Even in this well-informed age it’s surprising how much we still don’t know about the natural world – especially the oceans! All whales must come to the surface to breathe, despite this the Spade-tooth whale Mesoplodon traversii (Gray, 1874), an animal over 5m in length, has never been see alive, and untilRead more
Not Lower and Upper Hutt, but instead the story of two attempts at the pole. That of Sir Ernest Shackleton and the voyage of the Nimrod, and Captain Robert Falcon Scott and the Terra Nova expedition. We awoke to another extraordinary day at anchor off Cape Royds. The lunar landscape,Read more
Scott Base, as South as we go: In a place where the sun sets at 12.30 and rises at 2.30 sights just get more and more incredible. At 1am the sea around the boat started to freeze, the water became grainy and and looked like grease, slowing as theRead more
As we entered the Ross Sea we lef the band of large ice bergs behind us, and entered a fairly calm Ross sea. I kept a morning vigil on the bridge looking for whales. it was not until mid afternoon that we saw our first, a small and rapid antarcticRead more
Heading south from Macquarie Island we have had some relatively calm seas, pretty remarkable for this part of the world. Leaving the Roaring Forties which gave us a pretty slow rolling sea the fifties gave us a small taste of what it had to offer with some mild five-metre seas. PassingRead more
I awoke to find that the boat had moved over night to the bottom end of the Auckland Islands, into Carnley harbour, with Adams island to our south. Adams island is home to Gibson’s wandering albatross – DNA research is currently being carried out to determine if Gibson’s Albatross is distinctRead more
After leaving the port of Bluff, we took our sunset cruise down past Stewart Island on towards the Snares, our first port of call in Our Far South. The first marine mammal spotting of the trip was a small pod of Southern right whale dolphins, these spectacularly sleek animals haveRead more
