Guest Author • Apr 07, 2022 •
Professor Kevin Burns, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington Most of us know the sad story of New Zealand’s natural history. Having evolved for millennia in the absence of mammals, most New Zealand animals never learned how to cope with the throngs of predatory mammals that accompanied us on our journey to Aotearoa New Zealand. Thankfully, recent conservation … Read More
Guest Author • Feb 08, 2019 •
Alex Taylor, University of Auckland My ideas about animal behaviour were turned upside down in 2002 when I watched Betty, a New Caledonian crow, fashion a hook from a piece of wire and use it to pull a small container with meat from a tube. Betty’s behaviour captivated scientists because it seemed so creative: there was no … Read More
Guest Author • Sep 19, 2018 •
Dr Leilani Walker Back in 2015 I attended a talk by Lloyd Spencer Davis who was promoting his new book Professor Penguin: Discovery and Adventure With Penguins. One of the stories he told was that of biologist George Murray Levick, medical officer on Captain Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition to the South Pole in 1910. As a consequence … Read More
Sarah-Jane O'Connor • Apr 11, 2018 •
As an undergraduate studying biology, I knew I was in the right place when we got to animal behaviour experiments and the insights they gave about evolution and domestication. Pavlov’s drooling dogs, Skinner’s lever-tapping rats, Lorenz’s imprinted goslings … I lapped it up, drool and all. And no experiment has ever piqued my interest quite like an almost-forgotten study … Read More
Alison Campbell • Jan 14, 2016 •
In 2012 the world was introduced to some of the smallest-known vertebrates: tiny chameleons. My good friend Grant wrote about them at the time, & I set an essay assignment for my first-years on these tiny beasties. How tiny is tiny? The following images are from the original paper, published in PLoS one by Glaw, Kohler, Townsend & … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 18, 2015 •
Graeme Shannon, Bangor University Noise pollution, generally an unintended byproduct of urbanisation, transport and industry, is a key characteristic of human development and population growth. In some cases, it is produced intentionally, for example when seismic surveys are being carried out using powerful airgun arrays to explore and map the seafloor, or active sonar, which uses sound … Read More
Alison Campbell • Mar 23, 2015 •
I've always liked frogs. I remember, when I was probably around 4 years old, being fascinated by the tadpoles that Dad brought home in a big jar from a farm pond. Mum explained about how they'd gradually metamorphose (thought... Read More
Alison Campbell • Feb 28, 2015 •
So, which is it? A mantis? Or a fly? (Image by kind permission of Daniel Llavaneras) In fact, the creature shown in this gorgeous image by Daniel Llavaneras is neither mantis nor true (Dipteran) fly, although its common name is ‘mantisfly’. Instead, it belongs to the insect family Mantispidae (a group that includes lacewings and antlions). Like real praying mantids, matisflies walk on … Read More
Alison Campbell • May 30, 2011 •
Wouldn't that make a great name for a band?Rather to my surprise, I've discovered that 'sarcastic fringeheads' are actually...... Read More
Alison Campbell • May 19, 2011 •
My sea cucumber, that is.I was going to write something full of snark about the current brouhaha around predictions that the world is going to end on May 21st. But Darcy has beaten me to it! So instead (from the Echinoblog, and via... Read More