New Zealand’s native species evolved in isolation from other regions for millions of years after the last land bridge to...
Dr Nic Rawlence tells us about the amazing research by one of his students, who developed a specialised technique that allows scientists to non-destructively extract ancient...
This article describes how students and Ngāti Mutunga teamed up with an ecologist to investigate frog populations – kimihia means to look for – in the...
What’s unique about our native reptiles and amphibians, and why are they at risk? Learn more about the science behind conservation efforts for them here in...
Chytridiomycosis, a disease caused by the amphibian chytrid fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), has caused declines and, more depressingly, extinctions in amphibian populations around the world. However,...
Cath Battersby In May 2009, I visited Otago University and met with 3 scientists who had expressed an interest in getting involved with the Science Learning...
Position: University Professor, University of Otago. Field: Conservation biology. Dr Phil Bishop was a professor and head of the zoology department at the University of Otago....
New Zealand’s endemic tuatara is a very unusual animal. They are the only living representative of a group of reptiles known as Rhynchocephalia (sometimes known in...
Frogs are vertebrates and belong to the class Amphibia. They are the only amphibians naturally occurring in New Zealand. All frogs have delicate, semi-permeable skin that...
Position: Scholarships Manager, University of Waikato. Previously a postdoctoral researcher, University of Otago. Field: Zoology. When we first met Dr Kelly Hare in 2010, she was...
Position: Emeritus Professor, Department of Zoology, University of Otago. Field: Zoology and herpetology. Dr Alison Cree was a professor in the Department of Zoology at the...
Skinks and geckos are the only 2 native families of lizard found in Aotearoa New Zealand (note that tuatara are not lizards). They are vertebrates and...
Captive management is where animals are kept in captivity in some sort of enclosed space to assist survival of their species. This might be in a...
All of our reptiles and amphibians are fully protected by law. It is illegal to collect skinks and geckos, and you need a special permit to...
An inquiry approach is a method often used in science education. The question bank provides an initial list of questions about saving reptiles and amphibians and...
While employed as a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Otago, Dr Kelly Hare looked at how captive management regimes could influence the health of...
Professor Alison Cree is a reproductive biologist, working in the Department of Zoology at the University of Otago. A key focus of her research is the...
New Zealand has 4 species of native frogs that are all endemic. All 4 are threatened with extinction. A major focus of the amphibian research at...
This timeline provides look at some of the historical aspects of saving our reptiles and amphibians and other species, the impacts on them by humans, and...
Frogs for the future? is a ready-to-use cross curricular teaching resource. It uses the Ministry of Education’s 2019 Connected article Kimihia Kermit by Philippa Werry. Curriculum...
In this activity, students consider the conservation of native frogs from a number of different perspectives. By the end of this activity, students should be able...
In this activity, students use an interactive or paper-based Venn diagram to illustrate the key similarities and differences between skinks and geckos. By the end of...
In this activity, students discuss the importance of observation in science. They are given the opportunity to observe an image of a native frog and record...
In this activity, students work in small groups to rank a number of native reptiles and amphibians according to their conservation threat status or risk of...
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