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 ...

What an improbable animal is the seahorse! With a horse’s head, a possum’s tail, eyes like tiny glass fishbowls and fins that wave like chiffon frills, the shy creatures have intrigued and delighted ...

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 ...

Gypsies, tramps and thieves—in some measure, New Zealand’s swaggers were all of these things. They were opportunists in a society that idolised hard work and conformity. Their vagabondage earned them ...

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 ...

The last 50 years has seen a focus on cleaning up environmental messes—in policy jargon, mitigating the effects of human activities. This approach has led to the creation worldwide of institutions ...

In the last century illegal whisky production in Southland’s Hokonui Hills was a subject of police investigations. Today that shady past is a cause for celebration. The legend of Hokonui leads back to ...

Within sight but out of mind of thousands of weekday commuters who thunder along Auckland’s North Western motorway, Motu Manawa/Pollen Island may be the most overlooked of New Zealand’s marine ...

Packs of kea are reliable entertainers in places such as Arthur’s Pass or Glacier Country, and new research is showing that kea are smarter and have more complex communication than previously thought.

Imagine an underground reservoir so large that it has its own tides. A spring of such clarity that the term “crystal clear” is actual, not im­aginary. Where distance is decep­tive, and divers in its ...

For a long time, no one knew. But after a multi-year study, published in February in Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Otago have finally figured out what produces New Zealand ...

This summer will be remembered by many for the large numbers of stinging bluebottles (Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish) that appeared in the surf and on the shores of many New Zealand beaches. At the ...