Living World

Living lace

Crisp and wafer-thin, a colony of the lace coral Hippellozoon novaezelandiae looks good enough to eat. But like all bryozoans it produces toxic compounds to deter other creatures from nibbling it or settling on top of it. Such chemical defences are one of the reasons for the success of bryozoans—for these animals are among the commonest marine invertebrates. With nearly 1000 species, New Zealand possesses one of the richest bryozoan diversities in the world.

Magazine

ISSUE 061

Jan - Feb 2003

Albatrosses

Great South Road

Biscuits

Bryozoans

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Living World

A wing and a snare

Icon of southern seas, a soaring albatross is picture of grace and strength. Yet thousands die each year through contact with fishing operations. Snagged in nets or hooked and dragged under on longlines, they are victims of a silent slaughter which goes largely unnoticed by land-dwellers, but which is pushing several albatross species towards extinction. New Zealand's endemic southern Buller's albatross, here cruising off the Fiordland coast, is one of the species most frequently caught in local fisheries, and is the focus of a long-term study to assess the impact of fishing-related mortality on seabird populations.

Society

The Great South Road: where cultures converge

Once the main route south from Auckland, the Great South Road took war to the Waikato and opened up the city’s fertile hinterland for pioneer farmers. Eventually supplanted as a transport route by the motorway that grew vinelike about it, the old trunk road now connects a series of diverse communities which reflect the waves of migration that have changed the ethnic face of New Zealand’s largest city.

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