An earthquake is a brutal teacher. It employs disruptive violence, callously shaking that which always seems so reliable; the ground beneath our feet. It can do so ...

The bittern’s eerie, booming call sounds like a lament, a tangi ringing across the marshes. Now, the birds themselves are in trouble. A bittern’s mottled brown and beige plumage helps it blend into ...

Many of our skinks and geckos are so new to science that they don’t even have names. Much of what we do know about our lizards is thanks to an amateur herpetologist from Invercargill with no academic ...

On Anzac Day 2005, a new memorial—a simple cairn—was unveiled in Auckland Domain. It commemorates a hundred years of selfless service and sacrifice by soldiers of the Auckland Regiment and its ...

For 13 years conservationists have promoted marine protection as a good thing for the Hauraki Gulf. Now they have their wish, ...

As the world waits for a vaccine to end the Covid-19 pandemic, we’ll talk about the father of the anti-vaxx movement. Andrew Wakefield falsely linked the MMR vaccine with autism 22 years ago and the ...

Between 6–10 metres of rain falls in Fiordland each year. An incredible amount. It’s part of what powers the forest-to-fiord carbon storage pump that makes Fiordland exceptionally good at locking away ...

Happy Easter! By the time you read this, I’ll hopefully be in front of the fire in a DOC hut drinking my second hot chocolate. It’s been an eventful week. On Monday, a report revealed that Hawke’s Bay ...

A curious thing happened to Rebekah White this week. While the editor of the New Zealand Geographic was walking up a river she found herself plunging into the ground! Do we have quicksand in Aotearoa?

Kina numbers have exploded as we’ve eaten too many of their predators – like big snapper and crayfish – that usually keep them in check. The urchins munch through kelp and seaweed, leaving bare rock ...

Slaters, or woodlice, are part of the isopod family. They’re a type of crustacean – like crabs and crayfish – but they moved from the oceans onto the land millions of years ago. There are probably ...

Gibson’s and Antipodean albatrosses are citizens of no one nation. They are ocean birds, living on the wind and waves, travelling massive distances, passing back and forth over the high seas and the ...