Jean Balchin • Feb 19, 2018 •
Canterbury Museum is now the proud home of the world’s oldest penguin fossil and the world’s most complete specimen of any bird (also a penguin) that lived during the 10 million years following the extinction of the dinosaurs. Left to Right: Dr Paul Scofield, Dr Vanesa De Pietri and Dr Gerald Mayr with the skull of Rosie’s Penguin. The story … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 02, 2017 •
By Ursula Ellenberg, La Trobe University. Fishing nets pose a serious risk to the survival of penguin species, according to a new global review of the toll taken by “bycatch” from commercial fishing. Fourteen of the world’s 18 penguin species have been recorded as fishing bycatch. Among the species under threat are Tasmania’s little penguins and New … Read More
Guest Author • Jun 30, 2017 •
By Jasmine Lee, The University of Queensland; Justine Shaw, The University of Queensland, and Richard Fuller, The University of Queensland When you think of Antarctica, you probably picture vast, continuous ice sheets and glaciers, with maybe a penguin or two thrown in. Yet most Antarctic plants and animals live in the permanently ice-free areas … Read More
Guest Author • Dec 19, 2016 •
A year is a short time in science but a lot happened in 2016. In the first of its Summer Series articles, NIWA highlights its top scientific endeavours of the past 12 months and reveals we know a lot more about a whole range of things than we did this time last year. MARCH – Methane culprits identified Scientists … Read More
Victoria Metcalf • Apr 29, 2015 •
Over the weekend, in case you missed it, it was World Penguin Day, an annual day to think about those dapper-suited gentlemen and women and how much fun they bring to our lives. Let’s face it, I think everyone LOVES penguins. I’m yet to meet anyone that isn’t pretty mesmerised or completely besotted by the waddling … Read More
Victoria Metcalf • May 30, 2014 •
Four of the Antarctic or anything else headlines/social media bits that have grabbed my attention this week. Remarkably it looks like the diminutive Kiwi is the closest living relative of the extinct elephant bird. Image source: Wikimedia Commons uploaded by Glen Stewart. The importance of basic science 1. As a scientist I actually love it when what we think … Read More
Victoria Metcalf • Mar 28, 2014 •
Four of the Antarctic or anything else headlines/social media bits that have grabbed my attention this week. 1. A new study (full reference here) released has just shown that there’s a lot more ice being lost from the West Antarctic Ice Sheet than previously thought. We should … Read More
Bryan Walker • Jun 30, 2011 •
At Yale Environment 360 Fen Montaigne provides a fascinating, if disturbing, report on the findings of scientists working on the effects of sea ice retreat on the polar marine food chain. Montaigne is the author of the book Fraser’s Penguins which I reviewed earlier this year and of an earlier article at Yale Environment about [...] … Read More
Bryan Walker • Jan 10, 2011 •
I decided to read Fen Montaigne’s book Fraser’s Penguins: A Journey to the Future in Antarctica because of what I understood it would have to say about climate change. It does say very important things on that subject, but along the way it proved a fascinating account of the life of the Adélie penguins of [...] … Read More
Bryan Walker • Nov 24, 2010 •
Australian-born writer Meredith Hooper was looking for “a route into the complex business of the Earth’s changing climate†when she spent January to March 2002 at Palmer Station on the west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. She watched and chronicled the work of scientist Bill Fraser and his team who for years have studied the [...] … Read More