Much of New Zealand’s coastal property has an expiry date, with its value set to be wiped off the ledger in as little as nine years’ time, well before sea levels rise and coastlines are redrawn. What ...

A mycologist on a mission to catalogue all New Zealand’s species of rust has just added another 26 to the list. For Eric McKenzie, the fungal pathogens have been a 55-year passion. Some specimens have ...

What would the beach be without red-billed gulls? We may be about to find out. Two huge colonies have already gone under and the next biggest, in Kaikōura, is failing fast. In December 2023, ...

A nondescript field in Cromwell is the world’s first—and only—nature reserve dedicated to the protection of an invertebrate. It doesn’t look like your average nature reserve. A balding paddock ...

Turquet’s octopus lives in the Southern Ocean all around Antarctica, where it spends its life mostly on the seafloor, not moving far from the place it hatched. Its skin is smooth, pale and freckled, ...

People and livestock gobble so much fish that the seas soon won’t keep up. Is the answer to grow fish on land? After decades of research, scientists are cracking the secrets to commercially ...

For decades we’ve been told eight hours of sleep is the sweet spot for brain health. It’s true that snoozing too little, or too much, is linked to increased risk of developing neurological disorders ...

The market—and human appetite—are often to blame for ecosystem destruction. But in the case of kina barrens, they might be part of the solution. Kina fisherman Peter Herbert, universally known as Herb ...

Around the country, Birds New Zealand branches are trying to motivate their members to fill in one more observation list, while keen birders are ticking off grid squares, aiming for high scores.

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 ...

Earth tongue. Waxgills. Velvet shank. Slippery jacks. Milkcaps. This new field guide is packed with gorgeous macro photography (by Paula Vigus), but what really got me were the words. The names of ...

We cull hybrids. We steal their eggs, and break up inter-species breeding pairs, all in the name of genetic integrity. Protecting the mauri. We created this tangle by bringing in exotic species. Can ...