In 2019, scientists asked the public to catch and freeze mosquitoes, then post them to Te Papa. Over three years almost 900 tiny packages turned up. About a third of the insects weren’t mosquitoes at ...

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 ...

At night, the only light in the warehouse comes from row upon row of truck-sized tanks, each lit from within like a gigantic lava lamp. The contents roil, the colours shifting with the movement from ...

Today we cover the story of Peter La Fleming, a 21-year-old who had a fall on the 78-kilometre Heaphy Track in January 1980, became disorientated and lost for almost a month. He was rescued after 29 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Hundreds of snapper are floating in the sea off Auckland, and are washing up dead or dying on beaches off the Hauraki Gulf. Fisheries New Zealand is warning the public not to eat the fish “for safety ...

The release of Disney’s Moana in te reo was a landmark for Māori language revitalisation. As that rebirth gathers steam, mita, or dialects are returning to the fore. When The Lion King Reo Māori hit ...

Welcome to your new Weekender. Every Friday afternoon, we’ll be bringing you original stories from New Zealand Geographic. The big change is that we’re publishing news stories independently of the ...

A team of New Zealanders and Tongans have just carpeted a remote volcanic island in Tonga with poisoned bait, hoping to eradicate rats—and with that one action, restore a vibrant, interconnected ...

It has been a soggy few weeks for the upper North Island, with late January’s Auckland downpour and now, Cyclone Gabrielle. States of emergency have been declared across Ikaroa-a-Māui, schools and non ...