Joseph Brider, Natural Heritage Trust.
First published online (16 Feb 2021).
Budding Tree-fern (Cyathea decurrens). Photo: CINHT
Scattered throughout the Rarotonga inland forest are our Tree-ferns, known locally as Panga. These plants are not trees, they are ferns which have evolved a trunk-like stem to lift their leaves up off the forest floor in order to seek life-sustaining sunlight.
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Gerald McCormack, Natural Heritage Trust
First published CI News 26 Sept. 2019, modified 10 Feb. 2021.
South Penrhyn Basin nodules above the sediment
In July 2019, the Greenpeace report “In Deep Water” warned: “By impacting on natural processes that store carbon, deep sea mining could even make climate change worse by releasing carbon stored in deep sea sediments or disrupting the processes which ……. deliver it to those sediments. Deep sea sediments are known to be an important long-term store of ‘blue carbon’, the carbon that is naturally absorbed by marine life, a proportion of which is carried down to the sea floor as those creatures die.”
Gerald McCormack, Natural Heritage Trust
First published CI News 14 November 2020, updated
Pleiades detail and its passage across the Southern Hemisphere sky
The Matariki or Pleiades is a cluster of several hundred stars. To the naked-eye the nine brightest stars form a distinctive, eye-catching group with a glowing background, a bit larger than a Full Moon. People with dark-adapted eyes and excellent distance vision can see eight or nine stars, while most people report five or six.
Traditionally, some Polynesians used the dawn rising of Matariki as the signal marking the next lunar years, while others used the dusk rising as the signal.
Gerald McCormack, Natural Heritage Trust
During February and March the Pacific Golden-Plovers (Tōrea) transition from their dull non-breeding plumage into contrasting breeding plumage.
Holidaymakers gather in the airport departure lounge to leave for home, and as the boarding time approaches they hear entertainer Jake Numanga announce somewhat solemnly “Well, it’s time to go”. During February and March, Golden Plovers or Tōrea are also gathering around the airport grasslands to leave for home in Alaska. I wonder if they have a Jake bird announcing “Well, it’s time to go”?
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Joseph Brider, Natural Heritage Trust
First published CI News (19 Sept 2020)
Previously recorded Riffle-bug (Microvelia oceanica) for the Cook Islands
The Cook Islands Biodiversity and Ethnobiology Database lists nearly 650 species of insect and it is estimated we have around 1,300 species. We have found about 300 of the unrecorded insects, and are working to find and record the rest. Although most our insects are already known somewhere in the world, at present we have only a dozen that are unique to the Cook Islands, known as endemics.
Over the last few weeks, Natural Heritage Trust has been looking at our freshwater insect life, specifically the bugs that live on top of the water surface.
