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Apr

2026

Ātiu – the “land of birds”

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

Mariri was the first settler of Ātiu, probably around 1300AD, and he called the island ‘Enua Manu, “land of animals”, in response to the great abundance of animals. The oral traditions do not define the type of animals, and it is commonly thought they were birds, hence “land of birds”. Another interpretation refers to pesky insects that so annoyed Mariri that he went back to ‘Avaiki and returned with some birds to control them.

Today Ātiu has more native landbirds than any other local island so it is very deserving of the interpretation “land of birds” rather than the “land of insects”. The island is a birder’s paradise with nine of the twelve native landbirds that breed in the Cook Islands. Continue reading →

Apr

2026

Notable Species – 2024/25

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

The Cook Islands Biodiversity and Ethnobiology Database (CIBED) has been online since 2003 through the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. After several years of restructuring, it reopened in 2023 for the addition of new species at its new home address: https://naturalheritage.gov.ck/

The Natural Heritage Trust was established under an Act of Parliament in 1999 to record the traditional and scientific information on local plants and animals, both marine and terrestrial. CIBED has core information on 4,533 species, including 338 added since 2023.

In most countries, biodiversity databases focus on particular taxonomic groups, such as flowering plants, birds, fishes, agricultural pests, and lizards. CIBED is unusual in being able to record every type of living creature in the Cook Islands, even bacteria.

In CIBED, different groups are at very different stages of completion. For example, native flowering plants, at 185 species, are essentially complete, while introduced flowering plants, at 1,010 species, are incomplete, and more are arriving yearly. Nearshore fishes at 555 are relatively well recorded, although we know about fifty to be added. Seabirds, landbirds, migrants and vagrants stand at 85, which is complete except for the unpredictable arrival of vagrants, as recorded in this article for an American bird found on Penrhyn.

Marine shellfish are probably relatively complete at 412. However, as reported in this article, recent findings of four new intertidal air-breathing limpets show how unrecorded species hide in plain view. Insects are the most under-recorded group, and most new records in CIBED are insects, now numbering 816. We estimate there are more than 2,000 insects in the Cook Islands.

The most threatened group are native landsnails, with 53 extant and 15 recorded as extinct. Although the Convention on Biological Diversity commits us to prevent extinctions, we have no national projects on our native land snails.

This article draws attention to some of the species recently recorded in CIBED. Continue reading →

Mar

2026

Geckos and Skinks – Accidental Tourists

Cook Islands lizards are geckos and skinks. What is the difference? How did they arrive?

Lizards in the Cook Islands are either day-active, glossy-scaled skinks or nocturnal, matt-skinned geckos. The geckos are famous for walking up glass windows and across ceilings, a feat achieved by minute, adhesive filaments under their broad toes. In contrast, skinks have long slender toes with long claws. They have very acute vision to hunt insects and to avoid predators. Continue reading →

Mar

2026

El Niño: Droughts, Cyclones and Coral Bleaching

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

During the summer of 1982-83 Rarotonga experienced a severe drought. Although some water continued to flow into the mains, there was only enough for those near the source – remote areas, like Nikao and Arorangi, were lucky to have a trickle after midnight when the upstream users were asleep. In some areas trucks filled temporary tanks in the streets, and householders carried it in buckets into their homes.

As the drought progressed we learnt that many other parts of the world were also having unusual weather – droughts in some places, torrential rain in others. We were also told that the cause was something called El Niño. Apparently about a hundred years ago Peruvian fishermen noticed that the arrival of a warm ocean current around Christmas was the first indication of a disastrous fishing season, and widespread heavy rain causing landslides and floods. Because of its arrival time they called it the “current of the (Christ) Child”. Gradually the current and the associated weather became known as El Niño, variously translated as “the Christ child”, “the Child”, or “the little Boy”.

After the extreme 1982-83 event scientists became very active in seeking to explain and predict such irregular weather events. As a result the term El Niño was soon joined by others: Southern Oscillation (SO), Southern Oscillation Index (SOI), ENSO (El Niño and Southern Oscillation), and Warm Event. More recently we have learnt that after an El Niño the weather may overshoot “normal” and go to the opposite extreme. This “opposite of El Niño” is a La Niña (“the girl child”) – or a Cold Event, because conditions off Peru are colder than usual. Continue reading →

Mar

2026

The long-tailed Cuckoo – Part 2

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

This post is the second in a 2-part blog about The Long-tailed Cuckoo (Karavia, Urodynamis taitensis) which winters in tropical Polynesia and migrates to New Zealand in October and November to breed by duping other birds to incubate its eggs and raise its young. Part 2 explores the birds polynesian names and the possibility it was linked to early navigation. Continue reading →

Ātiu – the “land of birds”

Notable Species – 2024/25

Geckos and Skinks – Accidental Tourists

El Niño: Droughts, Cyclones and Coral Bleaching

The long-tailed Cuckoo – Part 2

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