Cryptic, calculating and coveted, orchids embody the artistry of evolution, and outwit intelligent orders of life at every turn.
In April 2000, New Zealand honeybees received a death threat in the form of the varroa mite, an insect parasite which, if left uncontrolled, is capable of destroying hives and wiping out bees from entire regions. Once inside a hive, the mites multiply rapidly, weakening the honeybee colony and making it susceptible to disease and hive robbers such as wax moths—the culprit behind the destruction of comb in this hive on apiarists Tony and Jane Lorimer's Waikato property. Though confined at present to the North Island, varroa is predicted to colonise the entire country, decimating wild honeybee populations everywhere.
It may look like a subterranean soft toy, but a prowling peripatus is anything but cuddly. The "velvet worm" is a voracious predator with a startling method of catching prey, and one of the forest's more unlikely denizens.
Bulging eyes, cold, clammy skin, webbed feet and a capacious mouth—frogs may repulse us, but they also intrigue, and who hasn't marvelled at their summertime serenade under the stars? Yet around the world many of Kermit's kin are disappearing, and here in New Zealand frogs seem less common than they once were. Deputy editor Warren Judd investigates the state of the amphibious nation.
Each year, 50,000 people in this country step out of aircraft into thin air, trusting their lives to a few square metres of nylon. Many are first-timers, making their jump in the embrace of a tandem master, who operates a single chute which supports both jumpers. With the introduction of tandem parachuting and other new techniques, it has become easier than ever to leap into the void—and land to tell the tale.
Tall oaks from little acorns grow, but until recently no spreading Moreton Bay fig trees sprouted from the seedy fruit that local trees produce. Now, thanks to a tiny wasp—the tree's indispensable pollinator—the situation has changed.
Poised between heaven and earth, an endangered striped gecko—just one of a suite of species with a precarious grasp on life found mainly on Stephens Island—hunts for its next meal. After a century of retrenchment associated with human occupation, wildlife on this windswept refuge is being coaxed back from the brink by Department of Conservation staff. Tenuous as life has been for the island's animal residents, it has also been far from easy for the handful of humans—mainly lighthouse keepers—who have been caretakers of this isolated outpost.
Poised to pounce, the praying mantis takes its name from a fancied,but not altogether appropriate,resemblance to the folded arms of the prayerful.
I have in my hand a small, warm bat. Wings folded, she fits perfectly in my palm, and her chestnut fur, damp from the evening dew, is spiky in a punkish sort of way. She is groggy with sleep; she has been napping-something bats do wonderfully well-while she awaited rescue from the benign trap set for her, this most unusual little mammal.
By rock, river and road a procession of desperate athletes struggle 239 km across the grain of the South Island in pursuit of self-fulfilment and, for a lucky few, a place in the record books. More determined than most, West Coaster Steve Maitland tackles the mountain run. He has competed twice before in the two-day race, but 1995 was his first shot at the single-day traverse.
Zooming in like a mouse on wings, a bumblebee prepares to gorge on a favourite food source: tree lucerne. Cast in popular imagination as quaint, cumbersome and "of no use because they don't make honey," the bumblebee's virtues as a tireless and effective pollinator are only now being appreciated and put to work. Far from being a droning bumpkin which somehow defies the laws of gravity, the bumblebee is being heralded as the gardener's true friend.
Inquisitive, intelligent, bold—kea find humans and their cast-offs every bit as intriguing as we find them. But our relationship with these cocky mountain parrots has not always been so cordial. For over a century, farmers slaughtered kea in their thousands in retribution for their attacks on sheep. Only now, with changes in high-country management and new insights into kea behaviour, are we learning to live with this spirited bird.
Around the country, young researchers are taking science out of the classroom and putting it on display.
With their deep green foliage and regal grey trunks, puriri are indeed princes among Northland's trees.
Frequently feared, but mostly misunderstood, spiders have a dazzling repertoire of behaviour, and engineering skills which are unmatched in the animal world.
Through most of their long history, the people of Great Barrier have fought isolation and scratched out a hard-won livelihood. Now, fast boats and automatic telephones are threatening to change forever a diverse community shaped by its past.
New Zealand has around 1000 species of native land snails, yet most people have probably never seen a single one. Warren Judd reveals something of the glory of these creatures and their shell-less relatives the slugs.
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