Boiling water and the stench of sulphur hardly seem a combination conducive to life, yet some bacteria thrive in such hostile environments. Biologists are beginning to think that the first life forms ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 drive to East Cape from Opotiki is one of the most memorable in New Zealand. Here, Māori communities have steadfastly maintained links with their culture, history and landscape. Evidence of this ...

There are difficult assignments, and then there’s filming in a watery, dank space with barely room to move. Director Melissa Nickerson goes behind the scenes of Luckie Strike, her documentary about ...

Evolution has made certain that we cannot ignore the distress of a child. It takes just 140 milliseconds for an upset child to trigger a caregiving response in the orbitofrontal cortex of our brains.

The migration of Oceania’s humpback whales, and their final destination in Antarctica, has remained shrouded in mystery. This year, a team of scientists travelled north to intercept and track the ...

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 ...

For a long time it was a good place to be an endangered skink—a vertical sheet of rock at the head of Milford Sound/Piopiotahi, too snowy and steep for mice to bother with. But as the climate warms, ...