Research and Museum Papers

Molluscan name-bearing types in the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

The 2008 edition of Tuhinga presents six articles that represent the diversity of the collections of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa).

The first paper, on the Māori names of marine life, discusses the possibility of losing many of these names as the move towards the standardisation of Māori grows.
The second article introduces a collection of WWII posters which was amassed, distributed and displayed by Wellington manufacturing businessman Cecil Herbert Andrews as part of his war effort. Terrestrial amphipods (New Zealand land hoppers) feature in the third article, with a checklist and an illustrated key to the identification of the 28 described species and species groups. There is a revision of New Zealand land snails over the last 60 years and the introduction of three new genera (Mollusca: Gastropoda: Charopidae). Researched as part of the development of the Te Papa exhibition Whales – Tohorā, there is a literature review on the role of whales, dolphins and porpoises in South Pacific island cultures. It does so under the categories of deity and veneration, origins and classification, power, status and adornment, alliance and protection, enmity and threat, and capture and consumption.
The final article discusses type specimens of birds, including fossils, which were deposited in the collections of Te Papa and its predecessor organisations from 1866 onwards. These are now listed for the first time.

Tuhinga 18 contains three quite diverse articles. The first article discusses the changing interpretations of the 1908 Maori Antiquities Act. The second looks at Maori fishing history and techniques and how some of the historical fish hook designs are being readopted. The final article discusses New Zealand landsnails of the genus Cytora Kobelt & Mōllendorff, 1897.

Tuhinga 17, 2006, contains seven articles covering insects, mites, artefacts, earthquake mitigation in museum exhibitions, flatworms and the Kaipara mullet fishery. Two articles are about Deraeocorini – one describes a new genus and four new species, the other gives an overview of New Zealand Deraeocorinae. One paper is about two new feather mite species and another looks at whale teeth artefacts in the western Solomon Islands. The strength of two waxes are compared for securing objects against earthquake damage. One article is about new and revised terrestrial flatworm taxa and another investigates the Kaipara mullet fishery and nineteenth-century management issues.

Tuhinga 16, 2005, contains nine articles about animals, plants, museum exhibitions, and politics in science. Five articles deal with a variety of species: ectoparasites from New Zealand birds, descriptions of scales from triplefin fishes, the rediscovery of important fossil moa bones in the London Natural History Museum, Te Papa's collection of invertebrate type specimens, and a study of a large group of New Zealand lichens.  Two articles examine and discuss recent successful exhibitions held at Te Papa, while another report on the dealings of a 19th Century curios dealer, and another delves into the affairs of New Zealand’s colonial men of science.

Tuhinga 15, 2004, contains nine articles about natural history and ancient communications. Three articles offer a close examination of the origins, incidences, and geographical variations of endemic New Zealand flora, while another reports - for the first time - the skeletal deformities in a New Zealand mullet fish, and another reveals new information about the waterfowl of the Holocene Age. The true meaning of a Western Solomon Islands fretworked shell plaque from the Te Papa collection is discovered, and other articles examine two spiders, harvestmen, and a louse.

Tuhinga 14, 2003, contains six articles: three on natural history and three on human culture. Of the biological papers, one deals with a mysterious nineteenth century kiwi and the history of its naming, another with two small New Zealand spiders, and the third is about a cave full of fossil birds and snails. Two of the humanities articles are based on collection items such as beautiful Solomon Islands wood sculptures and Tokelau adzes, while the third gives an interesting insight in the development of Te Papa’s Aainaa - reflections through Indian weddings exhibition.

Tuhinga 13 contains papers on 'A rich Pleistocene-Holocene avifaunal sequence from Te Waka #1: terrestrial fossil vertebrate faunas from inland Hawke's Bay, North Island, New Zealand (Part 2)'; 'New Fossil Records of Pelicans (Aves: Pelecanidae) from New Zealand'; 'The Grasses John Buchanan Illustrated in The Indigenous Grasses of New Zealand (1878-1880)'; 'John Buchanan F.L.S. botanist and artist (1819-1898)'; and 'Marine Macroalgae of Fiordland, New Zealand'.

Tuhinga 12 contains papers on 'Herbarium WELT in New Zealand's national museum, 1865-1997'; and 'The Estimation of Live Fish Size from Archaeological Cranial Bones of New Zealand Red Cod Pseudophycis bachus'.

Tuhinga 11 contains papers on 'The lichen genus Peltigera (Peltigerales: Ascomycota) in New Zealand'; and 'Description and ecological distribution of a new frog crab (Crustacea, Brachyura, Raninidae) from northern New Zealand waters, with keys to recent raninid genera and Notosceles species'.

Tuhinga 10, 1998, contains six articles; five on natural history, and one on the historical ethnology collections of the Museum. Of the natural history papers, two discuss historical botanical collections, Hooker’s Handbook of the New Zealand Flora (1864-1867), and historical phycological collections in the Herbarium at Te Papa.  The remaining three natural history articles are quite diverse; one discusses lizards of the Cook Islands, another, marine algae on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and the third is a checklist of liverworts and hornworts.

A stochastic approach to the reconstruction of prehistoric human diet in the Pacific region from bone isotope signatures

The estimation of live fish size from archaeological cranial bones of the New Zealand kahawai Arripis trutta

Nesophila hoggardii gen.et sp.nov. (Rhizophyllidaceae, Rhodophyta) from the offshore islands of northern New Zealand

The estimation of live fish size from archaeological cranial bones of the New Zealand barracouta Thyrsites atun.

Morphology, myology, collagen and DNA of a mummified upland moa, Megalapteryx didinus (Aves: dinorthiformes) from New Zealand

New species and records of deep-water mollusca from off New Zealand

Estimating live fish catches from archaeological bone fragments of snapper, Pagrus auratus

Victor Willhelm Lindauer (1888-1964): his life and works