Cook Islands

Mar

2026

Are there snakes in the Cook Islands?

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

Illustration depicting spotted and banded snake eel and a sea snake – J. Kunzlé

Inshore sea-snakes are common on and around the reefs of Fiji, Samoa, Tonga and Niue, but have never been recorded in the Cook Islands. The snake-like creatures in our lagoons are scaleless fish in the Snake-eel Family.

Snake-eels differ externally from sea-snakes in having a dorsal fin along most of the body, a more-or-less pointed tail, and protruding nostrils on the upper lip. Although they are not poisonous, they do have lots of small sharp teeth.

Spotted Snake-eel, (Myrichthys maculosus) – A&R Martin

The most common snake-eels are the Spotted Snake-eel (Myrichthys maculosus) and the Banded Snake-eel or Barred Snake-eel (Myrichthys colubrinus). The Spotted Snake-eel is up to 80cm, cream in colour with black spots. The Banded Snake-eel is a similar length with dark bands completely encircling its white body. And a less common third species has its bands reduced to dark saddles.

Although we have no inshore sea-snakes, we share with the rest of the tropical Pacific, the oceanic Yellow-bellied Sea-snake (Pelamis platurus). Like the inshore sea-snakes, the Yellow-bellied Sea-snake has external scales, a vertical paddle-like tail, no dorsal fin, and non-protruding nostrils. They swim to the surface to fill their lungs with air and can remain submerged for about two hours.

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Feb

2026

Cook Islands’ Needlefishes

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

Illustration showing identifying features of the four needlefish species found in Cook Islands

The Cook Islands’ biodiversity database lists 650 species of marine bony-fishes. In looking at the distribution of fishes across the Pacific it is obvious that there must be at least another hundred to be recorded locally. The Trust is always interested in information on new and unusual records.

For the needlefish family the database lists four species: Keeled Needlefish (Miro Va‘a-roroa, Platybelone platyura), Houndfish or Crocodile Needlefish (‘Aku, Tylosurus crocodilus), Reef Needlefish (‘Aku, Strongylura incisa ) and the Flat Needlefish (Pāpā, Ablennes hians).

The Keel-jawed Needlefish has been recorded across the South Pacific, but not specifically in the Cook Islands. However, it is an off-shore species and therefore very unlikely to have been caught in Ngatangi‘ia harbour.

Many species of fish have distinctive features and are reasonably easily identified from photographs, but some require a more detailed analysis of specimens. In the illustration we show some of the more conspicuous features of the four species of needlefish positively identified in the Cook Islands. Continue reading →

Feb

2026

Life in the Karekare Bee Hotel

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

Karekare Bee Hotel at 6pm on 28th December 2021 with suites numbered left to right

We built a small hotel to study the behaviour of the local Leaf-cutter Bee, which usually nests around March or April. The hotel had three 12mm holes about 50mm long drilled to overlap two blocks of wood so that separating them would open the holes for inspection. As a hotel, each hole is a suite and any occupying bee or wasp makes its own rooms by building partitions or doors. Within a suite, Room 1 is the first to be partitioned and will contain the oldest offspring.

Early morning on the 28^th December 2021 it was unexpectedly noticed that a large Tahitian Mason Wasp had already sealed Suite 2 with mud and was starting work on Suite 3, which she sealed in the early evening. Suite 1 remained vacant. Twelve days later, on the 9^th January the hotel was opened for inspection. Continue reading →

Feb

2026

Rarotonga’s largest skink is now an endemic

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

In 2010 scientists studied the DNA of Rarotonga’s largest skink and concluded that it was a new species, unique or endemic to Rarotonga. In February they named it Emoia tuitarere – Māori for wanderer, stranger, alien or sailor. For an English name we’ll call it the Wandering Skink. Continue reading →

Jan

2024

The spread of the “farmers friend” – the myna

Gerald McCormack, CINHT

The myna is locally much loathed as a pest, yet it arrived in the early 1900s with such high hopes as the “farmer’s friend”. We follow its triumphant march from India to many countries, including the Cook Islands.

The “farmer’s friend”

A couple of common myna birds competing for the right to feed on the fruit of the pawpaw.

The Common Myna is indigenous to southern Asia, primarily India. It lives in open woodlands but is strongly associated with people in agricultural and urban areas. It is known as the “farmer’s friend” because it helps control insects.

It was probably the first animal introduced to another country as a biocontrol, when the French took some from southeast India to Mauritius and Réunion islands in 1763 to control locusts/grasshoppers in the sugarcane fields. The French colonists called them “Martin” after Captain Martin of the ship “Gracieuse” that had brought them. The locusts were soon much reduced and the Martin was given the credit.

A little later, in 1766 Linnaeus considered this bird to be a bird of paradise and named it Paradisea tristis, meaning the dull bird of paradise. In 1816 Vieillot made the genus Acridotheres meaning grasshopper-hunter,and our myna became Acridotheres tristis; literally meaning the dull grasshopper-hunter. An obvious misnomer for a bird that is not dull in behaviour or appearance.

These birds and their relatives are Asian starlings and they are known in Hindi as Mainā, meaning “delightful”, referring to their varied calls and speech mimicry. Mainā is rendered into English as mynah or myna, while the French name is martin. Our particular myna is the Common Myna or Indian Myna, and it is identified in French as Martin triste.

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Cook Islands

Are there snakes in the Cook Islands?

Cook Islands’ Needlefishes

Life in the Karekare Bee Hotel

Rarotonga’s largest skink is now an endemic

The spread of the “farmers friend” – the myna

The “farmer’s friend”

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