In the South Island’s remote subalpine regions, a highly terrestrial songbird—one of two surviving species of New Zealand wren—has hopped, chirped and flown in the face of extinction. There are four ...

In March of this year, a special courier arrived in Wellington from France carrying a rather unimpos­ing stuffed lizard for dis­play at the National Museum. This specimen ­described by one ...

Sew Hoy was a merchant rather than a miner—his Dunedin store imported and exported goods to Australia, China, the United States, and Great Britain—and in the late 1880s, he persuaded other Otago ...

Here we are—a nation of parents, grandparents and children all in the same boat, together at home. He waka eke noa. Every day of the lock-down we will post a story or video and set of activities that ...

The planting of Russell lupins as sheep feed in the Canterbury high country is triggering a clash between farming and conservation values. In early summer, photographers jostle for space on the ...

The narrative fresh water mussels, known to Maori as kakahi and to science as Hyridella menziesii (and several related species), are oval shellfish, typically between about 50 and 90 mm in length.

One of the rarest ecologies in the world is hiding in plain sight, in the centre of the most central suburb of the largest city in New Zealand. Of more than 5000 hectares of rock forest that once ...

For nearly two centuries, the origins of a Spanish whaler and trader who founded a dynasty on the east coast were a mystery. Manuel Jose’s descendants are New Zealand’s largest family, and have ...

In the late 19th century, news of a strange antipodean bird with beautiful tail feathers, orange wattles, and a long curved beak spread around the British Empire. To Māori, it was a tapu bird—a sacred ...

There are more cautionary notes in Māoridom dealing with mana than you could shake the proverbial stick at. It is a source of both personal and collective strength, pride and identity. Mishandled, it ...

A forest is a place of peace. We go there to soak up the stillness, the quietude. But even the most Zen of gardens is in fact a frenetic trading floor, abuzz with an exchange of commodities and ...

No one knew that Kaikōura was home to the world’s only alpine-dwelling seabird until an amateur ornithologist following a rumour discovered its burrows high in the mountains. As the bizarre attributes ...